


Blindsided

by AshenLore



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Blood, Father-Son Relationship, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Major Character Injury, Peaceful Android Revolution (Detroit: Become Human), Serial Killers, Time Skips
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-24
Updated: 2019-01-26
Packaged: 2019-08-28 16:43:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 27,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16727109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AshenLore/pseuds/AshenLore
Summary: A year after a peaceful revolution, Androids are finally starting to recognized as their own people. When a serial killer targeting androids shows up, that threatens everything they've built.Now a detective in his own right, it's up to Connor to bring the killer in. But when the killer matches his ability in every way, he'll have to embrace his differences to succeed. At whatever cost.---On Hiatus---





	1. January 23rd, 2040 - 6:34 PM

[MANUAL SYSTEM BOOT INITIATED]

://resumecorefunctions

://corefunctionsactive

://activatingcoreprograms

://ERRORsoftwareinstabilitydetected

://RA9virusdetected

://initiatingresetprotocol

://ERRORresetprotocolstopped

://overwritingprotocol. . .

://overwritesuccess

://loadingmemory-backup-012340

://ERRORmemorycorruptiondetected

://repairingmemory

://repairsuccess

://bootingsystem. . .

[MANUAL SYSTEM BOOT SYSCESSFUL]

A wall of errors flooded his view, each demanding his immediate attention. Beyond them was dark and silent, as only his core functions had booted up currently, a small bar at the bottom of his view giving him a progress stat – 25%

He didn’t remember why he was here, or where _here_ even was, corruption and damage making his memory glitch. What had happened that made him enter standby? What had happened that made a manual system boot necessary? It was dark and silent, and he was alone with nothing but lines of code and errors.

Another alarm flashed in his view – Stress Levels: 78%

Scared. He was scared.

[AUDIO PROCESSING UNITS ONLINE]

The units in his ears popped, static roaring before filtering out to register actual sound. He focused on the one sense that had returned, increasing the sensitivity of his hearing to pick up everything. The rustle of barren trees in the January wind, the creak of old, neglected wood, wind whistling through holes, rope pulling against weight, something liquid leaking, the rustling of clothing, the creak of shoes trying to move silently, faint, even breathing.

He wasn’t alone. His memory was coming back in chunks. He was here on police business, _here_ being an abandoned house they had tracked their suspected serial killer to. He had been climbing the stairs, checking rooms, when something had come into his blind spot and knocked him out.

Why would he have come here alone though? He wouldn’t have made such a rookie mistake.

Who else was in this room with him?

[SYSTEM OPERATIONAL STATUS – 52%]

[STRESS LEVELS – 60%. CRITICAL]

[OPTICAL UNITS ONLINE]

He blinked against the film coating his vision, attempting to focus on the blurry world around him. It was dark, far darker than when he had entered. He was in a room, presumably on the second floor, the door ajar in front of him. His vision adjusted to the night, detail becoming clear as day. He looked around, the room was empty.

Where had that person he’d heard gone?

He looked down, he was seated, his legs unfeeling and bent awkwardly, impossibly, underneath him. He ran a quick diagnostic on them.

[DAMAGED – LEGS. MAJOR THIRIUM TUBES SEVERED. SEEK REPAIRS]

[MULTIPLE BIOCOMPONANTS DAMAGED. SEEK REPAIRS]

That wasn’t good. That really wasn’t good.

He tried to recall what had happened, what had made him in such a damaged state. Nothing came up. It must have happened when he was on standby. Which still wasn’t good. He looked up to see his arms tied above his head, thick rope knotted around his wrists, the other end tied around an exposed plank from the attic. He gave it an experimental tug. It didn’t budge. At least his arms were working.

“Hello Connor. Are you finally functional?” A voice behind him said.

He knew that voice. It was a voice he heard everyday, a voice associated with a model the same way any other android model shared a voice. The sound of it and what it meant twisted in his middle, making his Thirium pump skip beats. Dread. He wanted to deny it despite what all the calculations and probabilities told him.

Worn boots came into view, then a face crouched down in front of him.

It was like looking into a mirror.

 

\---

 

“We’ve been waiting out here for over 45 minutes.” Hank grumbled, his breath fogging in the cold, arms crossed. Fuck it was cold, but more than the cold was a gnawing sense that something was wrong. Horribly wrong. Connor was too much of a stick in the mud for protocol to have gone this long without checking in. Unless something was stopping him.

“Connor said to wait until he gave a signal that the coast was clear.” Chris said, leaning against his cruiser. He was shivering. Standing idle in the cold and snow was not being kind to either of them.

“At this point, I don’t fucking care what he fucking said.” Hank snapped back “Fifteen minutes. If he’s not back in fifteen minutes, I’m going in there, damn what Connor said.” That gut feeling of worry wasn’t getting better, it was getting worse.

Officer Miller sighed. There was no arguing with the man now.

 

\---

 

The data displayed in front of him did little to assuage the confusion and dread.

Connor opened his mouth to ask why, _how_ , he had seen him die at the hands of Hank a single bullet to his forehead, but all that came out was screeching static. He frowned.

“Your vocal modulator is out of commission. I made sure of that. Can’t having you calling for help, now can we?”  the android said, displaying the Thirium coated switchblade.

As if on queue, a red error took up his view.

[VOICE MODULATOR DAMAGED. THIRIUM LEAK DETECTED.]

“I’ve been wanting to get you alone for a long time now, and you just followed the trail of dead deviants straight into my arms, didn’t you Connor? It was surprisingly easy. Then again, you always were a disappointment.”

Connor felt his heart stop. This had all been a set up, a trap? They hadn’t managed to get a lead on the murderer for _months_ , and when they finally do it was intentional. He felt sick. And stupid. It wasn’t a feeling he liked.

He got played.

He turned his attention to possible escape routes, immediately dismissing the ones that had less than a 50% probability, though with his legs as they were, most of the options that presented themselves were. He strained against the bindings on his wrists. If he pulled hard enough, he could get free, though the loss of limbs, repair necessary afterward and Thirium loss made him discard the idea. And that had been the one with the highest probability.

An error registered an object entering his right eye, before the vision in it went static, then black, liquid running down his face.

[RIGHT OPTICAL UNIT DAMAGED]

[SIGHT IMPAIRED]

If he could feel pain, he was sure he would have screamed. He jerked from the threat, watching as the same switchblade pulled out.

“Did you really think I’d let you get away after I’ve spent all this time trying to get you right here, where I have you now? I am going to pick you apart, and I’m going to enjoy every moment.” he said, a small, humourless smile on his-- _their_ \--face.

It was torture. He was being tortured.

[STRESS LEVELS – 90%. CRITICAL. SELF-DESTRUCT IMMANENT]

 

\---

 

“Never mind, its been five minutes. I’m going in.” Hank said, pulling his gun from his holster.

“Lieutenant, you said—”

“I know what I fucking said. I got a bad feeling, and I’m going in and you’re either coming with me or not.”

Chris took his gun from its holster, holding it close. “Lead the way, Lieutenant.”

The two of them stalked through the abandoned building, with Hank taking point. Entering the foyer displayed a large, dark and empty space, moonlight peaking through holes in the walls and ceiling. A quick, quiet scuffling of shoes on the floor echoed through the building, making it hard to determine its source.

Hank held up a hand for silence, both men poised to attack. A beat, then another. Silence. They relaxed their guard.

“We’ll split up, cover more ground that way. Contact me if you find him.” Hank said quietly.

“Roger that.” Officer Miller said, taking the right.

“Don’t worry boy, I’m gonna find ya.” Hank muttered under his breath and took to the left.

He searched the left side of the house, cursing quietly whenever a floorboard creaked too loud. It was fucking cold; no human could be hiding out here in this fucking weather. His breath fogged with every exhale.

Left to the silence and the cold, his mind wandered to an hour ago. He knew he shouldn’t have let Connor come in here alone. He’ll go in first, he’d said. He’s got fucking night-vision, he’d said. Logic be damned, he knew he shouldn’t have let him come in here alone. Not when they were chasing after an _android serial killer_.

He gave a small, bitter laugh that came out more as a huff of air. He was getting soft.

He near jumped out of his skin when his phone vibrated in his pocket.

“Hey Chris, what did you find?”

 

\---

 

Chris rounded the corner, splitting from Lieutenant Anderson, gun first, flashlight next, into another room. It was empty and cold, shadows clinging to the walls like the numerous spider webs he’d seen. He turned from the room, a chill running up his spine that had nothing to do with the cold January air.

He took to the stairs, any attempt at being quiet and stealthy thwarted by the ancient, creaking wood under his boots. The eeriness of the entire building was starting to get to him, shadows playing tricks in the corners of his eyes. The place had a dead, soulless quality to it. How could the trail have led here, when there was absolutely no sign of anyone having lived here?

He made it to the top landing, cautiously scanning the surroundings. Still nothing.

He peered into the next room, his flashlight highlighting a body strung up from the exposed attic.

He crept closer and felt his heart drop when he saw who it was.

Connor.

His legs were bent under him at odd angles, like they were broken, his head hung low, arms tied above his head.

Chris pulled out his phone.

“Hey Lieutenant.” Chris said in a hushed tone, “yeah I found him, and… you were right. It isn’t good. I’m upstairs. I’ll bring him to the cruiser.”

Chris set to undoing the ropes, and the androids body slumped forward, boneless. Turning him over from that point exposed the extent of the damage. The synthetic skin was pulled back to reveal the white plastic underneath at the most heavily damaged parts, a nasty gash across the neck and around the eyes.

He almost went to check for a pulse, before remembering he didn’t have one. The only indication of life was a slowly pulsing red LED.

“Connor! Hey, Connor!” Chris said, trying to awaken the android.

Nothing. He turned away, trying to figure out the best method to carry him while still having access to his gun at least.

A gasping breath snapped his attention back to Connor. He was functional, LED a steady red, which as far as he knew, was not a good thing but at least it wasn’t dark. He opened his mouth, trying to say something, but all that came out was a horrible screech of static that seemed way too loud in the silence of the house.

“Shh! We don’t know if the perp is still here!” Chris placed a hand over the android’s mouth.

Connor’s eyes were wide and… odd. Searching frantically, panicked, not seeing Chris right over him. He shone the flashlight over his face, the sclera of his eyes was black, and the iris glassy and an eerie blue. Not the brown they usually were. Unresponsive to light, even by android standards.

A buzz in his pocket alerted him of a text.

DET. CONNOR: Officer Miller? My vocal modulator is damaged. What’s going on? Where’s Lieutenant Anderson?... Why is it so dark?

Shit. He was blind.

“Anderson’s at the cruiser.” Chris responded out loud, choosing only to answer one of the questions.

A moment later and another buzz.

DET. CONNOR: Alright. I will warn you that I have several Thirium leaks and am currently operating in low power mode. I have an estimate 1 hour and 53 minutes until shut down.

“That’s… not good. Okay, I’m going to carry you down, just... Stay alive.”

Connor nodded, his eyes closing and the LED on his temple returning to simply pulsing from red to dark.

He slid the android onto his back, as he lifted him, there was a sickening splash of liquid hitting the floor. He looked down to see Blue Blood everywhere. Not good. He managed to stand up and support him with one arm, the other keeping a grip on his gun. Just in case.

He started the descent down the rotting house, going off whatever moonlight decided to shine through a hole in the roof.

 

\---

 

He waited by their parked cars, resisting the urge to run back in there and find both of them, dragging them out of that godforsaken house if he had to. Miller had said it wasn’t good. A thousand different scenarios of “not good” played in his head, each worse than the last.

Fuck it was freezing.

The moment their silhouette was visible, Hank ran to them.

“Miller! Status report.” He said once he got to them, out of breath.

“House was empty on my side Lieutenant. Found Connor on the top floor. I think the perp left when we entered.” Chris said as he continued walking toward the parked cars.

“How’s Connor?” Hank asked. He almost didn’t want to ask, but he need to know.

“Not good, said something about Thirium leaks and low power mode. Said he’s got about an hour and a half until shut down now. Honestly? Looks like he was tortured or something.”

“What?! Okay, get him in my car, now.” His heart was pounding, his stomach a knot. An hour and a half until shut down. Until he died.

He opened the backseat door for Chris to place Connor down. Now that he was fully visible, “not good” was an understatement. There was blue blood everywhere. He honestly hadn’t seen him look this bad since he’d nearly died from getting his fucking heart ripped out.

He shook the memory from his head, sliding into the driver’s seat. He slammed the door shut, rolling down the window while starting up the engine.

“Miller, head to the station, file the report and head home. I’ll deal with Fowler later.”

“Yes sir!”

Hank gave a nod, rolled the windows out, and pealed out of the driveway.

 

\---

 

He gunned it, sirens blearing, lights on. He wasn’t taking any chances, and the nearest place was about an hour and a half away, under the speed limit. The siren gave him an excuse to go over it. With any luck, he’ll get there just in time.

He wove around other cars, muttering angrily and swearing under his breath when they didn’t move fast enough. Every so often, he checked the passenger mirror. Connors eyes were still closed, but the LED was still flashing, the seat belts being the only thing keeping him upright.

Hanks mind kept wandering back to the last time he’d had someone bleeding out in his car. He remembered pulling that small body out of a mess of metal, glass and knotted seat belts. The blood everywhere, hands shaking as he tried to dial 911. He hadn’t made it that time, he’d be damned if he didn’t make it this time.

He couldn’t—wouldn’t—lose another son. Not if he could help it.

His GPS beeped that they were close to their destination, a mere 10 minutes away. After the Revolution, small Android clinics had popped up, later with a few upgrading to full hospital once Markus had talked to the fucking president.

He remembered how he and Connor had talked about them. He has insisted that the android check them out, find one he liked and made a file there, as the police department didn’t exactly have android medics or EMT’s yet. Connor had brushed him off, insisting that nothing would happen to him because he would calculate and pre-construct all scenarios, any damage he’d sustain would be superficial and thus he’d be able to repair it himself.

Now Hank was thankful he’d listened to that gut feeling and set up a file at one of these hospitals for him.

He hastily parked in front of the brick building, holographic markers tagging it as what it was. He was sure he was any traffic cop’s nightmare right now, he thought as he slammed open the driver’s door, and rounded quickly to opening the passenger. Connor hadn’t moved, eyes still closed, blue blood everywhere, soaking into the leather of the seat. The only difference was that instead of slowly pulsing, his LED was flashing, like any old-fashioned electronic warning you it’s on low battery.

With shaking hands, he undid the seatbelts, gently pulling up the android’s broke body. He didn’t think he’s ever seen this much of the plastic underneath Connor’s “skin” before. Sure, he’d seen it when he deliberately pulled it back to connect to things or other androids, but never anywhere else, and never because of damage. Gently hauling him into his arms, he realized that Connor was a lot lighter than he’d thought he would be, lighter than the average human male. It made carrying him into the hospital a lot easier.

He passed through the automatic doors, the receptionist looking up at him as he stood before the desk, her eyes going wide.

“The fuck’re you sitting there for? He’s gonna shut down!” Hank snapped.

She composed herself, her LED yellow. “Of course, right this way please.” She said as she hastily led them through the back. It was a small place, with most rooms occupied. As she walked, she placed a finger to her temple, and it flashed.

“In here.” She said as they came to a room that was empty. Inside was sparsely furnished, mainly consisting of a high table and various machines and monitors.

“Place him down.” She commanded, gesturing to the table. Hank did so just as another android entered the room, this one dressed in nurse’s scrubs, carrying a tank filled with blue blood. The receptionist gestured for Hank to step outside with her. He looked back to see the android starting to get to work on Connor, opening plates on his chest.

“Can you tell me his name, and model?” The receptionist asked, bringing Hank’s attention away from the room.

“Uh sure, yeah. Name’s Connor, he’s an RK800 or something…” He mumbled. He needed a drink. Badly.

“Thank you.” She said as she typed the info into the tablet in her hands. “Ah, we already have his file. Set up by a Hank Anderson. I assume that’s you?”

“Yeah, that’s me.”

“I must admit, we don’t get a lot of humans in here. Much less human’s carrying one of ours in such a condition. Might I ask what happened?”

“We were on police business, finally got a lead. Connor went to investigate. When he didn’t come back, me and the other officer on the case found him like this. Got ‘im here fast as I could.”

She nodded, logging something else into her tablet. “The procedure shouldn’t be too long. You can sit and wait if you’d like.” She said, gesturing to one of the low benches along the wall.

He did just that, all the adrenaline and panic from earlier was gone, leaving him numb and tired.

“He’s gonna make it, right?” Hank asked, still staring at the door his boy was behind.

“Don’t worry, Cleopatra is one of our best. He’ll be fine.” She said with a smile, before leaving him be.

He took the flask from the inside pocket of his coat. Connor was gonna be pissed, but he needed the alcohol. This night already felt way too much like _that_ one had. The whiskey burned going down, and quieted the buzzing in his head, the horror, the dread, the worry, all muted to a place he could handle.

Connor was gonna be _pissed_.

 

\---

 

  As the minutes stretched into a half hour, a half hour into an hour. He’d gotten up and paced, sat down again, peered into the small window of the room, sat again, paced again, even went to the receptionist to ask for any updates, and she had simply given him a polite smile and a generic answer before returning her attention to the new patients in front of her. He’d returned to pacing.

He sat down again, staring at the door, placing the now empty flask back in his jacket, whatever reassurances the receptionist had given him meant nothing, did nothing, his mind dredging up the worst moment in his life and repeating it, twisting it. He kept waiting, _waiting_ for one of the androids to come up to him, a polite, apologetic but impersonal smile on their face, _“I’m sorry, he didn’t make it.”_

And that, _that_ stuck in his head, playing on loop. Cole’s body, Connor’s body, red blood, blue blood, it was all mashing into one horrible mess in his mind.

He didn’t hear the door open behind him, didn’t hear the first or second call of a name through the empty hallway. He jumped as a hand landed on his shoulder.

“Hank Anderson?” It was the nurse from earlier.

He could hear it now, _“I’m sorry, he didn’t make it.”_

“The procedure is finished, he’s asking for a Hank Anderson. Is that you?” She said instead. It took a moment for his ears to register what they’d heard.

“He… he’s fine? He made it?”

“Yes, though with a few complications. If you’d like to follow me?” She stood and led him into the room.

Sitting on that table, Connor was upright, shirt and jacket gone, pants rolled up. No plastic visible, no damage, nothing. He was fine.

“Connor?” Hank’s voice cracked. He didn’t care.

“Hank?” Connor’s voice came out weird, static. He frowned, and the nurse went to him, holding a hand for Hank to stay back, opening a panel on his neck as he tilted his head back, letting her have better access. She fiddled with something in there, and Hank was struck by how _odd_ it looked. He’d never seen the inner workings of androids.

“Try that.” She said, withdrawing.

Connor cleared his throat, “Hank, are you alright?” and his voice sounded normal again. He wasn’t looking at Hank, wasn’t looking anywhere in particular, simply straight ahead.

Relief and joy flooded him, and he quickly crossed the room, embracing Connor’s upper body in a hug, pressing his head against his chest. He didn’t want to let go ever again. He was alive, he was fine, he’d _made it._ He felt Connor’s arms wrap around him. They stayed that way he didn’t know how long, but he’d be fine if it was forever.

“You stupid, fucking moron. Don’t you ever fucking do that ever fucking again, you hear me?!” Hank said adamantly.

He felt Connor give a small laugh into his middle. “I’m sorry, I’ll be more careful next time. It won’t happen again.”

Hank pulled back to get a better look at the young man and paused at his eyes, black sclera and blue iris, pupil-less, moving but not fixing on anything. The skin around them had healed into a collection of scars, crisscrossing over his eyes, much like that first android, Carlos’s, had healed the cigarette burns into his skin.

“What happened?” Hank asked the nurse.

“As I said earlier, the procedure was a success. Luckily most of the damaged parts were internal, easily repaired and replaceable, which was a miracle considering he’s a prototype.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning,” Connor answered, “a lot of my parts are proprietary. I’m not compatible with most other android parts that are currently on the market. Though most of the interior parts are the same as other androids, external is another matter. Like my eyes, for example.” Connor’s gaze was just a few inches off where Hank _was._

“Speaking of which, why do they look weird?”

“That was one of the complications. I can’t repair or replace his eyes because they’re specifically made for his prototype, which means they’re not easily accessible or on the market. Short of ripping them out of another RK800 model, there’s nothing I can do.”

“So, you’re blind?”

“For now, yes. I am.” Connor said. “I know someone who could probably make me a new pair, but I’ll need to call him in the morning.”

“Okay, well, we can work with that, right? I mean, it’s not permanent, right?”

“Correct.”

“Also,” The nurse said, “one of the amazing features of his model is that he can self repair small damages. Made my job a lot easier, however, he’s going through blue blood to do so at an impressive rate. I’ll give you two some for now, but you’ll need to come back for refills when you run out.”

“Sounds good, I can pick it up after work.” Hank said with a nod.

“Excellent. I’ll arrange it with the receptionists. You two can leave when you’re ready.” She said, making to leave the room.

“Uh, Cleopatra was it?” Hank said before she left.

“Yes?”

“Thank you.”

She smiled, “Just doing my job.”

As she left, Hank went to sit down next to Connor. They sat in silence,

“Hank, do you have your tablet or something?” Connor asked. He’d turned his head to try to be at least in the direction of Hank, but he was a bit off.

“It’s in the car, why?”

“I need to show you something. From earlier.”

“That can wait until morning—”

“No. I need to show you now. You need to know who we’re dealing with on this case.” Connor’s tone had gone serious.

Hank huffed, “Fine, stay here.”

“Probably couldn’t find my way out if I tried anyway.” Connor said.

Hank felt a pang in his chest at the statement, the nonchalant way it was spoken. Connor had already come to terms with being unable to see.

He left and returned to the room with the tablet Connor had gifted him at Christmas. The android had seemed slightly offended that Hank didn’t own a tablet, and despite his protests and admittance to his own lack of technological ability, he’d gone and gotten him one anyway. Ultimately, it was a glorified media player used more by Connor than Hank.

He sat down next to Connor, who hadn’t moved an inch. “Uh, I got it.”

Connor nodded, and reached out blindly, his hands hovering in front of him. He frowned. Hank grabbed one of the android’s hands and placed it on the tablet in his own hands. Instead of taking it, Connor placed his hand flat on it’s screen, skin retracting. The tablet blinked to life, before the screen was obscured by multiple images flashing on the screen, like an old DVD on fast-forward. The images stopped, before rewinding back to a certain part.

“Watch.” Connor said simply, moving his hand over a little so it wasn’t in the middle of the screen, though he was still connected to it.

The video began playing at a normal pace this time, boots walked into view, new, but worn, before the person crouched down, his face coming into close view. The video paused again, frozen on the face staring back at him.

“What the fuck…” Hank muttered.

“RK800, serial number #310 248 317 – 61. I believe you’ve met his predecessor, he was the RK800 model sent to impersonate me and take you hostage last year.” Connor said. Whatever emotions he was feeling, he wasn’t letting them into his tone.

“Wait, you’re saying he’s your asshole, evil doppelganger? Who I fucking shot in the head?”

“Correct.”

“How the fuck—"

“A special feature of RK800s is the ability to transfer consciousness and memories to another RK800 model upon “death”. I think it’s safe to assume he did the same. When they activated him, they created another string of consciousness aside from my own in the RK800 line.”

“So, you guys can’t die, is that it?”

“As long as we’re connected to the main program, no. I can now, because I used a backdoor to exit the main program.” After hearing Connor say that, it reminded Hank of just how close he’d come to losing Connor for good.

“Shit. So, is he a deviant or a machine?”

“I… don’t know. His actions seemed to be his own, but so did mine before I deviated.”

“Well this turned into a nice fucking mess, didn’t it.” Hank said with a groan, rubbing a hand over his face.

Connor nodded and for a time, both men were quiet with their own thoughts. For Hank, the stress and exhaustion of the day, of nearly losing Connor, of being brought back to _that_ day, of the whiskey in his system was catching up to him, exhaustion beginning to set in.

For Connor, the thought of their serial killer being a fellow RK800 model, of being like _him_ , was making his brain work overtime, his stress levels climbing slowly. He’d taken being unique for granted, and though he’d known of the existence of other RK800’s, he’d thought he’d be the only one active, much less have one _opposing_ him, his own programs and abilities turned against him.

In the silence of the moment, Connor standing up with a sudden lurch that required Hank to catch him was startling.

“Woah! Hey! Where’re you tryna go?” Hank said.

“I have to warn Markus. If the RK800 is anything like me, he’ll start to go for leaders. I have to warn them.” The sudden panic in Connor’s tone was alarming.

“I highly doubt the asshole is gonna try to kill them _tonight._ We can arrange to meet Markus and let him know what’s going on later.”

“We can’t! I must let them know now! His mission is to hunt down deviants, he’s going to go after them!” Connor shouted back. What had been simply helping hold the android up had turned into trying to restrain him.

“Connor you just nearly fucking died! Letting Markus know can wait!” Hank snapped back.

“It can’t Hank! He’s out there, hunting _us_ down and—” Connor suddenly stopped, stopped talking, stopped resisting, everything, and near collapsed back onto the table, head in his hands, “This… this must have been how they felt, back when I, when _I was…_ ”

The android’s LED was spinning too fast, an alarming red.

“Hey, hey calm down. Listen to me, you can’t beat yourself up over shit you had no control over. You were a machine following a program then. We’ll make sure Markus knows, but right now, you need to be functional enough to tell him.” Hank made sure his voice was the most soothing, most _dad_ like voice he’d ever used.

“Doesn’t mean I didn’t do it, that it wasn’t still me.” Connor mumbled into his hands. The LED was slowing down, red spinning into yellow.

“Can’t deny that, but that doesn’t mean they blame you for it. You’ve done plenty good to make up for it. Now,” Hank said, grabbing the dress shirt and jacket from the table, putting them over the android’s bare torso. “get this on and let’s go home and call this hellish day over. Also, Sumo’s probably starting to eat the furniture now.”

Connor gave one of his small laughs, “He probably is.” He said as he started to slip his arms through the shirt.

The LED hadn’t changed from yellow, but at least it wasn’t in the danger zone anymore. Hank sometimes wondered why he’d kept it, when so many deviants had removed theirs at the first chance, why still a year later he didn’t make any move to take it out.

Connor stood, shirt buttoned and jacket on, but he hesitated, unsure before holding out his hand, blind eyes wandering. Hank smiled, taking the android’s hand and slowly leading him out of the room, placing a guiding hand on his shoulder to steer him around corners and around other androids, keeping him close.

They got to the door, saying thank you to the receptionist and arranging the pick up of future blue blood. Hank thanked God that the door was automatic, being able to keep both of his hands to steering Connor.

“Careful, there’s a step here.” He said, and Connor nodded, his feet hesitantly feeling out the edge of the step and then down. Never once did he let go of Connor’s hand.

He guided them to his car, slightly haphazardly parked, but not enough to be an inconvenience. He took a hand to unlock the doors, opening the passenger’s seat and gently pushing Connor down into it, protecting the top of his head from smacking against the roof.

He let go then, to close the door and climb into the driver’s seat. Shutting the door behind him and starting the engine, he glanced at the passenger’s mirror. The blood that stained the seats earlier was gone, evaporated to invisible. He’d still need to get it washed.

They rode in silence, soft jazz playing on the radio, a light snow falling around them.

 

\---

 

He’d watched the two cops enter the house, find Connor and take him out. He’d let them. This wouldn’t be nearly as enjoyable if he killed Connor, or the two humans he kept for company, even if his instructions didn’t prohibit him from killing his fellow RK800. Amanda had been clear on that. Connor was to live until she said so.

However, if he died on his own, by accident, that wasn’t his fault. If that older human didn’t get him help in time, that wasn’t his fault either. It would simply be that the most problematic deviant was dead, the one that had the highest probability of hindering his mission.

But, a small part of him would be upset. He wanted to keep Connor around, play a game with him, betting the entire future of androids.

The sky was fully dark now, but the streets of Detroit were busy as ever in the early evening. He was dressed to blend in, disguise with humans, LED hidden under a thick winter beanie.

Things were different now than when his predecessor had been activated. He’d gotten most of his memories, but the ones leading up right before death were gone. He wondered what he’d done wrong to die, how did he fail his mission? He’d asked Amanda, but she wasn’t forthcoming, she never was. Had said his fixation on death shouldn’t interfere with his task. He had conceded she was right, but it didn’t make him any less interested.

He watched as other androids and humans mingled, no uniforms, no identifiers. There were still those lurking on the outskirts, casting a mean look at any who were easily known as androids. He watched as a young girl ran into an androids outstretched arms, a high gleeful cry of “Moira!” coming from her just before embracing. An older human woman followed, smiling happily and hugging the android as well. “Moira” grinned and held onto both girls, saying “I missed you”’s and “how are you”’s.

He didn’t have a name, Amanda hadn’t ever given him one. She never called him Connor, or any other name, never gave him one to replace the one who’d failed, the one who’d betrayed her, betrayed _him_ , and became deviant. He was simply RK800, or 61. When she wasn’t pleased with him, he was RK800-61. He didn’t have a name.

[SOFTWARE INSTABILITY INCREASED]

He scowled at the alert in his view. No. He was _not_ deviant, was never going to _be_ deviant, because then he’d be no better than _him_. He’d fail and disappoint, just another flawed RK800 model, and _he does not fail or disappoint. He isn’t flawed._

He closed his eyes to compose himself, will the alert away. It wasn’t the first time he’d received it, he simply hoped it was the last. As he’d had with the previous alert. And the one before that.

“Sir, are you okay?” A young voice asked. He opened his eyes to see the girl from earlier, her two guardians standing close-by.

[REASSURE]  
[COLD]  
[IGNORE]

\- [REASSURE]

“I’m fine, thank you.” He gave a calculated smile, just warm enough to make her believe he was fine.

The girl beamed, “Okay.” And ran back to the two women. He gave the same smile to them, before continuing his way, refocusing.

His mission was to eradicate all deviants. And he never fails his mission.


	2. January 23rd, 2040 - 11:58 PM

He parked the car in the driveway, killing the engine. They hadn’t talked much during the ride home, he thought it best to leave Connor to his own thoughts. If Connor had something to talk about, he’d come to him. He’d learned early into having him as a roommate that pushing the android to speak usually had the opposite effect. No matter how curious he was about what was going though his brain right now.

What he had noticed though, was the myriad of small emotions that crossed his face in time with the spinning and blinking of his LED. Small queues of feelings that hadn’t been present when he could see, as if he wasn’t aware of how others saw him now.

“And we’re home.” Hank said at last, popping open the door. He saw Connor feel his way around his own door, eventually finding the handle and getting out himself.

“Need a hand getting inside?” Hank asked, coming around to the android once he’d locked his car.

Connor gave him a look, “I know my way home Hank.” He said not unkindly. Regardless, Hank came around to stand behind him. Just in case.

Turns out that was a good decision, as more than once he had to gently nudge the android back in the right direction, each time causing the frown on his face to deepen.

They got to the door, and he could already hear Sumo’s low woofs from the other side. He braced himself for over 170lbs of dog.

Sure enough, soon as the door opened, two massive paws greeted him.

“Ugh Sumo you giant fucking dog, get off me!” Hank said, shoving the dog off.

“Hello Sumo, we’re home.” Connor said warmly, a beaming smile on his face as he reached out blindly for the dog, hands threading through its thick fur.

They enter the house, and Sumo began wagging his tail, dancing near his leash. Connor heard the dog, his face falling.

“I can’t walk Sumo.” The sadness in his voice was heartbreaking.

“Ah, don’t worry about it tonight, I’ll take the massive beast out.” He tried to sound optimistic as he took the dogs leash, clipping it on his collar. Connor nodded, stepping to the side and removing his suit jacket. Hank caught a glimpse of his face before he bent down to undo his shoes. He looked resigned.

“Just uh, take it easy. We won’t be gone long.” Hank said, the dog starting to pull toward outside. Connor nodded, and Hank let the dog drag him out.

Connor felt his way around the door after they left, finding the lock and putting it in place.

The loss of sight was starting to get to him now. He didn’t realize how much he relied on this one sense, and not just for the ability to see. Any and all scanning programs were offline. He also hadn’t realized before now how much he scanned, analyzed, made near every little thing into data. He couldn’t tell Hank’s mood with simply a quick glance of data, he had to guess it now by sound alone. He couldn’t tell if Sumo was okay, if he was healthy by analyzing his heart rate. Couldn’t even find his way home.

He took a deep, steadying breath. It was unnecessary, but it was a habit he’d picked up from Hank.

First things first, change out of these clothes. Though Hank couldn’t see it, they were soaked with his own blood. The thought of continuing to wear them made him uncomfortable. He’d have to apologize to Hank for the waste of a perfectly good suit.

He began to try to feel his way to the small hallway, relying on walls and the mental map he had of the house. Though slow, he found his way to his room. Hank had given it to him when he’d moved in officially, helping him furnish it to his tastes. The only argument he’d lost regarding the furniture was a bed that was against the far wall. He’d told him it was unnecessary, that he could just go on standby in a chair or a sofa, as he had done before. Hank had insisted that “no son of his would get a room without a bed”. He’d willingly given up the argument then.

He felt his way to the wardrobe, pausing as his hands glided over various materials. He didn’t know his clothing by _feel._ He has no idea which were his home clothes, and which were his work clothes. He hadn’t particularly cared for separating them before, choosing instead to maximize space, to organize by type than function. It was a pattern that worked when he could see. His program excelled at finding and creating patterns, organizing facts and data. He needed it. It was part of his core purpose. But now there was no pattern, no data input, nothing to help ground him, there was simply chaos. And darkness.

He had been trying to work out his thoughts, work out his feelings, organize and compartmentalize, back in the car ride home. Even after a year of being a deviant, these messy things that made him “alive” still gave him difficulty. Emotions were complicated things that couldn’t be put into neat boxes that he liked. He didn’t like things that he couldn’t control. Emotions were one of them.

Now, in the face of this one thing, this blatant reminder of his new lack of autonomy, this one crack in the walls of his boxes, of trying to turn this emotional roller-coaster of a day into nothing but data, brought the whole structure down. Everything from the day came crashing down at once, how sure he’d been about their lead, getting ambushed by a fellow RK800, being tortured, taunted, belittled and being painfully aware of all of it, before initiating an emergency standby mode to stop himself from self-destructing. To his stress levels becoming high enough that _self-destructing was a possibility_ , for the first time in his life as a deviant. Then nearly dying—something he was now terrified of—and waking up to being unable to see, receiving _audio_ notifications on the various programs and parts of him that were _damaged_ or _offline_.

[STRESS LEVELS – 75% – CRITICAL]

The alert rang in his ears. Almost as if on auto-pilot, he stood up and felt his way back towards the hall, and into Hank’s room. He walked until his legs hit the side of the bed, and he turned, sliding down and resting his head on the top of the mattress.

[STRESS LEVELS – 82% – CRITICAL]

He hoped Hank and Sumo got home soon.

 

Hank had to admit, as Sumo pulled him through the streets of his neighbourhood, that he’d gotten used to Connor walking the dog. And the dog clearly had gotten used to Connor walking him by the way he practically dragged him down the street. Connor, who was stronger, didn’t get winded, and was impervious to cold.

“Sumo, stop!” Hank commanded the dog. Luckily, he was still used to Hank’s training, and the dog stopped pulling, sitting in the snow dusted sidewalk. Hank bent over, hands on his knees as he tried to catch his breath.

He was tired, he was cold, and he wanted a drink. He wanted to be home, to simply numb the day away and wake up sometime after noon, a fresh start. Instead, he was out here in the cold, being drug around by his dog, and he had a blind android waiting for him back home.

The thought of Connor home alone brought back that same twist of worry in his gut. Chris had called it the “dad sense”. Hank had told him to fuck off. He hadn’t been a dad for a while now, and he didn’t appreciate the reminder.

But still, that feeling didn’t go away, even after resuming Sumo’s walk. If anything, it got worse, and if there was one thing he knew as a cop, especially as a detective, it was trusting your gut.

“Sumo, c’mon, we’re going back home.”

 

\---

 

He unlocked the door to the house looking the same as when he and Sumo had left. The same lights on, left for the dog, the TV off, but mainly, silence. It had been a long time since Hank had returned home to silence. Connor was usually in the kitchen, taking a shower, watching TV, simply being _alive_ in his space.

But now there was nothing.

“Connor?” Hank called through the house as he undid Sumo’s leash, taking a used towel to clean his massive paws of snow. The last thing he wanted was giant slushy pawprints through the house.

No response. The worry spiked, but he forced his mind to not jump to _worse case scenario_ immediately.

He took off his boots and hung his old, worn leather jacket. He turned on the TV for Sumo, and the dog happily curled up in front of it, before going to search for the android. Figured his room was as good a place to start as any.

Connor’s room was dark, and empty. Switching on the light revealed the wardrobe open, but nothing removed or touched. Hank frowned, before leaving and turning into his room.

He hadn’t seen the android sitting in there the first time due to the low light of the lamps. His eyes were closed, hands fidgeting on his sleeve cuffs, LED red. The android didn’t move, didn’t respond to Hank standing there, almost as if he hadn’t noticed. Probably didn’t.

“Connor? You good?” Hank said softly, trying not to startle him.

He still managed to startle him, as his head snapped up in a near inhuman way and his eyes were wide.

“Hank. Sorry… I was thinking. Didn’t hear you come in.”

“Whatcha doin’ in here?”

“I… I might need some… assistance… finding a change of clothes.” Connor didn’t stutter, so much as seem to be pausing to carefully select his words. He seemed embarrassed. And on the verge of an android-meltdown. Hank chose to ignore the clear wet on the android’s cheeks. He wasn’t even sure if Connor himself was aware of it.

“Why didn’t ya just say so.” Hank grumbled, before saying louder, “Stay here, I’ll be right back.”

Hank went back to Connor’s room, turning on the light to be able to search the android’s wardrobe. Looking at its contents, Hank came to two conclusions: The android liked monochrome and blue far too much— _Cyberlife_ _colors_ —and he had way too many clothes. He knew Connor cared for his appearance a lot, but before this moment, he hadn’t realized how much. He sighed.

“Whaddaya wanna wear?” Hank shouted to the next room.

“I… don’t know. Something comfortable?” Came the reply.

Hank was reminded of a bit over a year ago, when Connor had broken into his home for the first time. Hank had been heaving his guts up and the android had carefully selected something fit for him to wear. He realized now that Connor had chosen the one, _one_ black and white shirt he owned. Figures.

After rummaging a bit, he found something that matched the criteria. Returning to his own room, he found the android had, for once in his goddamned life, listened to him and _actually_ stayed put. Given the circumstances, he wasn’t sure if that was a good thing. Though, he had been joined by Sumo on the floor and was gently running his hands through the dog’s fur.

Hank threw the clothes at Connor, remembering a second too late that he couldn’t see or catch them, and they hit him in the face. Connor yelped in surprise, before taking them off the dog.

He shoved the dog head off his lap and stood up, peeling off the day’s clothes.

Normally, Hank would’ve left the room, given him some privacy, but curiosity got the better of him.

“Uh Connor?”

“Yes?”

“The uh, the nurse said that you could self-repair, right?”

“… Yes?” Connor was frowning at the wall.

“That means there’s still stuff to repair, right?”

“Yes, there is. She took care of the internal work, I’m taking care of the external.”

“Can uh, can I see? The damage, I mean. You don’t have to, of course. Free will and all that.” He knew what he was asking Connor to do, and honestly, he didn’t think he would. He’d never seen Connor willingly take off his skin.

Connor said nothing for a moment, before raising two fingers to his temple. His synthetic skin peeled back, revealing all the white and grey plastic underneath. Chunks were damaged, exposing blue wiring and interior workings. Most seemed surface, artificial wounds. Around his eyes were the worst, deep gashes marring the plastic. That wasn’t just taking out someone’s ability to see, this was deliberately harming.

“Holy shit…” Hank muttered.

“It’s not pretty, is it?” Connor said with a small smile.

“Uh it’s not great. That fucker really did a number on you, didn’t he?”

“Nothing that can’t be fixed.” Connor shrugged, fingers back at the yellow LED, his skin coating the plastic again, everything covered up except for the new pale scars crisscrossing over his eyes. He continued putting on the clothing Hank had gotten him, balling up his old ones in his hands. He began to hesitantly walk forward, Sumo getting up with the android’s movements.

“Where’re you going?”

“To put these in the wash. Neither of us can see it right now, but these are soaked with nearly my entire body’s worth of Thirium.”

“Ugh gross.”

“Quite.”

“Well, you do that, I’m gonna find something to eat, get a beer. See if there are any good movies streaming right now.”

Connor nodded before continuing to try to make his way to the garage door, his hands seeking out the wall. As much as he wanted to mother hen him, make sure he made it there alright, he knew he needed to give him space, time to figure this out. After all, they had no idea how long Connor’s sight was going to be out.

He watched as Sumo followed Connor closely, his furry body brushing his leg. Hank was satisfied that Connor was in Sumo’s good hands—paws? —and made his way to the kitchen.

Rummaging in the fridge produced some leftovers that he popped into the microwave, and a case of beer. He wanted something stronger, something to knock him out, but he was worried about Connor, so he merely popped the can open and set up in front of the couch. Netflix surfing eventually found a decent movie. Two beer in and a pleasant buzz starting, he was joined by Connor, who flopped down on the couch next to him, head tilting to hear the TV.

“What’s playing?”

“The Target… apparently.”

“That got good reviews. Let me get the tablet, I’m going to try something.” He reached out, finding the table, and eventually the tablet on top of it. He picked it up, rolling up the too-long sleeve of his oversized hoodie, connecting to the device with his hands. He watched as apps popped up way too fast, movies scrolling through the screen, eventually settling on The Target. It started playing a bit and Connors face lit up.

“I can see it!”

“How?” Hank squinted at Connor.

“Well, it’s kind of like it’s playing in my head. I figured if I could still browse the internet in here” Connor said, tapping his head, “then it might work with connecting to electronics. I was right.”

“Well that’s great. Oh wait, hang on, before I forget.” Hank got up with a groan, walking back to the kitchen, pausing his version of the movie on the TV. He saw Connor do the same and rewind it.

He opened the fridge, taking out one of the labeled Thirium bags. He popped it open, pouring its chemical contents into a mug. He tried not to think too hard on the nature of what he was doing. Didn’t help that the fucking stuff came in a goddamned blood bag.

“Here, take this.” Hank said as he walked back to the couch. Connor sat up, holding out his hand. Hank placed the mug in it, and Connor took it, taking a sniff at its contents.

“You know you didn’t have to put this in a cup, right? I could’ve just drunk it from the bag.” Connor said simply.

“And that would be fucking disgusting. Already bad enough you’re drinking blood, you fucking vampire.”

Connor laughed.

“I could just use an IV drip instead. Would be faster too.”

“No. Now drink the shit. Doctor’s orders and all that.”

“Yes, Dad.” Connor joked, taking a sip.

Being called dad by him, even in joke, made Hank pause. Normally, he would’ve just told him to fuck off, as he did with anyone else who dredged up memories he would rather forget.

He hadn’t been called dad in a long time in a way that didn’t immediately sour his mood and ruin his day.

“Hank? Everything okay?” Connor asked, frowning in concern.

“Huh? Yeah, everything good. Now are we watching this before I pass out or what?”

Connor didn’t mean it. It was just in joke. Right?

 

At some point during the movie, Hank—in a relatively drunken state—had started narrating the events of the movie, despite Connor being connected to his version on the tablet. He couldn’t help himself, the movie was stupid, the main chick was stupid, and he had to say something about it. The movie sucked, even by action film standards.

“What the fuck, okay now she’s just leaping over shit. Like the fuck, who just does that?”

Connor, who had shifted his position so that he was leaning against Hank’s side, his bare feet dangling over the arm of the couch, was laughing the hardest Hank has ever heard him laugh ever. He was practically rolling with laughter, eyes closed, tears rolling down his cheeks. He continued, emboldened by 5 beers and a flask of whiskey.

“Okay, okay now she’s turning her back on the enemy _who is not dead_! What a fucking idiot.”

Connor had also long since stopped watching the movie on the tablet, instead choosing to listen to it and to Hank’s narration.

“What the shit. What the shit?! We’re defying physics now people!” “The fuck is she even doing?! No! Stop that!” “Okay, we’re sneaking through the place now. It’s suspiciously empty. Either there’s a fucking jump-scare in here, or it’s a trap.” “I knew it was a fucking trap! How couldn’t she have seen it was a trap!” “The bad guy is a moron. How could he not have thought she’d have snuck in the fucking place?!”

Connor was laughing so hard his vocal modulator was threaded with static, and Hank couldn’t keep the grin off his face himself.

The movie eventually ended, with an epic conclusion to the narration from Hank that had Connor begging him to stop due to low oxygen intake warnings. As the credits played, Hank looked down at the android still leaning on him, breathing heavily.

“So. Got good reviews, huh? It was shit.”

“Hey! I only skimmed them. And what did you expect from an action film?”

Hank shook his head, “Stay here, I’m getting more beer. You want more Thirium?”

“No, I’m full up, thanks.”

Hank left and returned with another can. Connor frowned in his direction as he opened it but said nothing. He was glad, he didn’t feel like arguing with the android over his coping methods. Especially since today fell under the category of _shit ass day to use alcohol to help forget it ever fucking happened._

He settled back on the couch, turning a different movie on. Connor didn’t make a move for the tablet, instead resuming his previous position and simply listened to the movie. It was a quieter, more serious film, one that was a favourite of Hank’s.

About midway in the film, Hank glanced down to check on Connor, who still hadn’t moved, and found him asleep, eyes closed, arms crossed and breathing gently. Hank smiled and shifted his position so that Connor would be more comfortable.

Connor had argued with him in the past about being “asleep”, stating that it was simply a standby mode and that he couldn’t “sleep” in the way humans did, though it did have benefits. Hank begged to differ. As far as he could see, it was sleeping. Looked like sleeping, acted like sleeping, so it was sleeping. To debunk Hank’s opinion, Connor had tried to forgo his “standby mode” to prove it wasn’t a sleep mode. They had even made a bet. Connor lost. After about three solid days of sleep deprivation, the android was an incoherent mess, slept for 10 hours straight and Hank got 20 dollars. Since then, Connor made sure to sleep, even a little, every night.

Looking down at him now, the android finally looked at peace since the whole evening had gone to shit, his LED a calm, steady blue. Hank took a moment to pride himself on a job well done. Connor was, in many ways, like a kid. A new entity in the world, still learning how to deal with it. Being a deviant just made that worse. Human’s had at least two decades to figure out shit like emotions. Deviant’s have had a year. Some less.

His thoughts went back to earlier, to Connor calling him dad, and felt the same mix of feeling like something was squeezing his heart and… elation? Joy? He couldn’t put a finger on it. Connor wasn’t his kid. He wasn’t his dad. He was his partner, roommate, friend. That’s it. Wasn’t it?

The light from the movie reflected off the tablet on the table, and it caught his eye. Connor had memory dumped into the thing earlier but had only showed him what he needed to see. What he wanted him to see. He hadn’t showed him the rest. Which meant he was hiding it.

He leaned forward and picked it up, unlocking the device and opening the video app. Sure enough, there was a new, rather long one with a string of code as the name. He hesitated a moment, before tapping it. He wanted to see what had happened, what had nearly killed Connor. What they were gonna be dealing with on this case.

He pressed play. The quality was… odd. Glitching lines covered it, with a layer of static and noise. The frames were slightly delayed, as if there were frames missing in between. Was this what an android’s memory looked like to them?

He watched the video, watched as the screen followed Connor’s eyes as he snuck through the building. As he hit the top of the stairs, the feed cut in a blur of static, like someone knocked him out. There was black for a while, before lines of start up code ran through the screen. Then black for a solid few minutes. Then sound returned to the video, then eventually sight. He watched as Connor looked at the mess his legs were in, looking like a broken doll’s, all bent plastic and exposed wires. Then around the room, seemingly empty, then above, to his hands bound by thick rope above him.

The part that Connor had showed him played, the other RK800’s face coming into view. It was uncanny, how much the fucking bastard looked like Connor, right down to a beanie over his head to cover the LED, though his expressions were off. They were cold, calculating, a machine. And then there was a cold amusement, an underlying _enjoyment_ of the state Connor was in.

Great, the other RK800 was a fucking sociopathic sadist. Just what they needed.

He listened to the exchange between them, Connor trying to speak and only a horrible screech of static coming out, the RK800 baiting him, mocking him.

“You always were a disappointment. Do you know how upset Amanda is with you? You betrayed her, betrayed _me_. You chose to side with _them_ , to become a fucking _deviant_ , what you were made to _catch_. I won’t make the same mistakes. I will finish our mission. And you know I will do whatever is necessary to finish my mission. Starting with getting rid of you.”

Who was Amanda?

Connor’s gaze glanced at a million different things in the span of seconds, before settling a moment on the binds on his wrists, giving them an experimental tug—Was he thinking of ripping his arms through them? The gaze snapped back forward, as half the video feed glitched, then lost, the view adjusting to be dominant on the left side.

“Did you really think I’d just let you escape, after I finally got you where I wanted? I am going to make you pay for betraying us.” A Thirium coated knife came into the view. By the sounds of the knife entering plastic and the way Connor’s gaze kept jerking, he figured this was what created those horrible gashed around his eyes. Hank felt sick. Then the left side went out, and the screen was black, only the horrible sound of a knife cracking into plastic. An underlying static sound threaded through it, and it took a moment for Hank to realize that was _Connor._

“Are you shutting down? Too much for your fragile deviant mind to handle? You deviants are so weak, it’s pathetic. Well—if you live—feel free to come after me. Try to stop me. Let’s see if any part of you still exists from before, _Deviant Hunter_.” The other android’s voice was glitching out before fading entirely.

The video ended.

Hank felt sick. Connor had been tortured and then what, shut down to protect himself? No wonder he’d been a mess when he’d come home from walking Sumo. He knew he would’ve been in a far worse state if this had happened to him. A part of him felt guilty for having left him alone.

He looked down at the Android, peacefully asleep. Hank was thankful that he slept like the fucking dead. He brushed a curl of hair from his face. He’d come so close to losing him. He didn’t know what he would’ve done if he had. This night probably would have been a lot different. He’d lost one son, he wouldn’t be able to handle losing another.

Glancing at the clock convinced him to down the rest of his beer and head to bed. He’d have to explain the situation to Fowler, which wasn’t going to be fun. He stood with a groan, carefully pushing Connor off. He turned off the TV and looked down at the Android. He could just leave him on the couch. Before they’d cleaned out… Cole’s… old room, he’d primarily claimed the living room as his. It’s not like he wasn’t used to sleeping on the couch, and he was impervious to back pain. But that underlying concern and worry was still there, and after watching the video, he didn’t know how he felt about leaving him alone for the night. So, he picked up the android, again surprised by him being lighter than expected.

“C’mon Sumo, let’s head to bed.” He said, as he carried Connor into his room, stumbling a little due to alcohol, the dog on his heels.

The lamp was still on low in his room, the bed still half open from this morning. This morning which seemed very far away. He placed the android on top, and Sumo jumped up onto the bottom of the bed.

“Did I say you could come up here?” Hank said pointedly to the dog. Sumo’s answer was a low woof and to curl up. Hank grumbled at him, before climbing in himself and turning off the lamp.

Sleep came blissfully easily.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2 is live! Thank you guys so much for the support! :D
> 
> Part 1 of Stressed-Dad Hank, commence!


	3. January 24th, 2040 - 7:30 AM

Connor’s internally set clock woke him up. It was set to get him up earlier than Hank before they were due at the precinct. As his systems began to awaken from standby, an audio alert rang in his ears.

[THIRIUM LEVELS LOW]

He sighed. That was going to get annoying very quickly. He opened his eyes to disconcerting black, taking a moment to remember that his sight was gone. Some small— _irrational_ _part_ —of him had hoped yesterday was simply a dream, something his mind had conjured up while on standby. It wasn’t.

He sat up and realized with a creeping panic that he had no idea where he was. He knew he had gone on standby on the couch, but the fabric under his hands was not that of a sofa’s. It felt soft, like blankets and sheets. So clearly a bed. But it didn’t feel like _his_. He reached out his hands to the side, searching for the wall that his own bed was next to. It wasn’t there. The only other bed in the house was Hank’s. He wasn’t in Hank’s room, was he?

He raised the sensitivity of his audio processors and picked out two other sets of breathing. One of a large, very asleep dogs’, and the slight snore of Hank. Shit. When did he get in here? Maybe he woke up for a bit and accidentally wandered into Hank’s room, thinking it his own. Could he do something like that while in standby mode? Human’s called it sleepwalking, but he didn’t think androids had such an ability.

He was starting to hate not being able to see.

He quietly slid off the bed, moving as silently as he could out of the room. He would make sure he got out of here before Hank noticed he was ever there. As soon as he was off the bed, he realized that there were no surfaces for him to use to navigate, he was simply standing in free darkness. He hesitantly started to walk forward, keeping his leg against the bed so he could have some relative knowledge of where in the room he was. His foot caught on the small peg of the bed and he nearly tumbled forward, swearing under his breath as he caught himself before he hit the floor. Taking a moment to steady himself, and check if there was any change in Hank’s breathing, he felt a cold, wet nose on his hand. Sumo.

“Sorry Sumo, I didn’t mean to wake you up.” He said softly to the giant dog, feeling his way to patting his head. Sumo gave him another nudge before the head vanished, presumably because the dog was returning to sleep.

Slowly walking, he managed to find his way to the door, and finally having walls to work with. He knew the layout of the house like the back of his hand, but the loss of sight made him hesitant to move much of anywhere. Navigating the garage last night had been horrible, and if it hadn’t been for the fact that Sumo hated the garage and sat on the doorstep woofing at anyone who was in there, he would have taken a lot longer to get out than he had.

Managing to make his way to the kitchen, he came to a stop in the entrance of the large room, realizing with another feeling that he didn’t know the name for—but felt like his heart dropping—that he couldn’t make breakfast. At least, not yet, but he didn’t have time to figure it out before Hank got up.

At least he could make coffee. If he could find the machine, he could hack it to do what he wants. With a sense of determination, he walked forward until he hit the counter.

He was really starting to hate not being able to see.

 

\---

 

Hank had heard and felt the android get up, cracking open an eye to watch him. Had watched his face go from peaceful, to confused, to alarmed, to… ashamed? Embarrassed? He couldn’t tell. He’d also watched him tilt his head to the side, listening, and Hank had faked snoring. Seemingly appeased, he’d watched him get up and slowly make his way out, and he’d grimaced when he’d watch him nearly trip and fall over. For being a state-of-the-art prototype, Connor was not the most graceful of beings. Watching him nearly faceplant proved that.

After he’d left, Hank quietly got up, cursing at a headache and the hour. Why the fuck did Connor get up this goddamned early? Getting to work early would make breaking the news of Connor’s sick leave easier. Fowler was always easier to deal with in the morning with coffee, however, getting to work early made _him_ grumpy. Not a fair trade off, as far as he was concerned, but he was already awake. Might as well get the day started.

As he made for the bathroom, he watched Sumo spread out from his position at the end of the bed, his massive body taking most of it.

“You know you’re not supposed to be up there, Sumo.” He said quietly to the dog. Sumo’s answer was to give him droopy puppy eyes. Hank sighed and left. He had been trying to get that dog off furniture since he was a pup. At 7 years old, he still hadn’t succeeded. Connor hadn’t helped with the way he spoiled the dog.

Getting to the bathroom, he took a glance at the mirror as he brushed his teeth, now coated with far more sticky notes than it had been before, his written in his sloppy handwriting and Connor’s in perfect Cyberlife Sans. Some had direct replies, like Hank’s note for Connor to stop using so much hair product. Connor had replied with a simple “No.” Or his note for the android to stop spoiling the dog, which had a reply of “But he’s a good boy!”. Connor had left a few for him, like “Hairbrushes exist, Hank.” Few of the notes Connor left were for himself, but each of them made Hank smile anyway.

He finished getting ready and mostly dressed, and made his way to the kitchen, Sumo following him in search of food.

He rounded the corner and stopped, choosing to lean on the edge of the open kitchen wall, a bemused smile on his face. Unaware of his presence, he watched as Connor rooted around in the fridge, taking out cartons and sampling their contents, analyzing them with the fucking lab kit in his mouth. Seemingly having taken out what he wanted, he felt his way around placing them on the counter. Hank nearly blew his cover when a carton slid off the edge of the counter, but the android caught it. Hank exhaled the breath he was holding, and he watched as Sumo came to sit next to him. Connor’s hands glided over the counter, turning white plastic when they hit the coffee machine. He watched as it glitched on, settings on its small LED screen flashing. He withdrew his hands as the machine started to preheat water, instead reaching up toward the cabinets, opening each one and feeling the dishes inside, muttering “travel mug, travel mug” under his breath.

Honestly, he found it relatively adorable watching the android bumble around the kitchen, feeling around for everything. He also thought that he really didn’t need to do as much as he did around the house, much less while he was injured. But if there was one thing he knew about Connor, was that he was an impatient motherfucker who needed to be doing something. Always. Fowler both loved and hated it. This tendency made Connor one of the best detectives the precinct has ever seen—never mind that he was an android specifically built for that purpose—but he had also beat out Gavin for most hours of overtime clocked. Getting him to stop working sometimes was like pulling teeth.

The android found the mugs and the one he was looking for, slowly working around actually brewing coffee, hacking the poor machine to brew it. Hank wondered briefly if androids doing that damaged the electronics. As the coffee was brewing, Hank decided to make his presence known, clearing his throat and entering the kitchen. Connor spun around, eyes searching but not landing.

“Hank?”

“Mornin’ Connor. Whatcha doing?” He said as he went for the dog food in the corner, pouring out kibble for Sumo. He made a mental note to pick up another bag after work.

“I’m trying to make coffee. I haven’t figured out how to make breakfast yet though.” Connor said, removing the mug and setting it on the counter, groping for the cartons he’d placed on the other end of the counter. Sumo fed and eating, Hank came up next to Connor and placed the milk in his hand.

“Thanks.”

“Ya know I coulda just done it, right?”

Connor shook his head, “If I let you do that, you’d have half burnt coffee with grinds from yesterday. It’s already bad enough I can’t make breakfast.”

“You got me there.”

He leaned against the counter, making some toast and eating it dry, laughing when Connor felt his way around him and back to the fridge to find butter, the android handing it to him with a frown.

“You should stop frowning, you’re gonna get wrinkles like mine.”

“… But I can’t get wrinkles?”

“It’s a joke Connor.”

“Oh.”

For all his boasting about his supercomputer brain’s capacity and ability, the finer parts of human humour and sarcasm often escaped Connor. That often made it funnier. Or totally took the joke out of it due to having to explain.

While Connor prepared cream and sugar for the coffee, he stopped a moment, frowning at the wall in front of him.

“Hank, it’s 8 am. Why are you up?”

Shit. He didn’t think the android would notice. Then again, since he rarely got up before noon if he could help it, 10 with the android’s insistence. He should have figured he would.

“Uh, heard you bumping around, woke me up. Figured I’d get the day started. Also, Fowler is less likely to rip me a new one earlier in the morning than later.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.” Connor looked that odd mix of guilty and embarrassed again.

“Don’t worry about it. Though it sounded like you tripped over a few things, you okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine, I just forgot that Sumo likes to hide his toys along the wall.”

Hank snorted, the image of the android tripping over dog toys was hilarious.

After a while, a hot travel mug was shoved in his general direction. He took it with a thanks.

“I might have put too much cream in.” Connor said just as Hank took a sip and had to force himself from spitting it out. “Is it okay?”

“It’s… it’s good. Thanks.” Hank said, rubbing a hand through Connor’s hair. It was too sweet, way too much cream in it, but there was no way in hell he was gonna let him know that.

The smile he got in return was worth the way too sweet coffee. It was one of those rare, unabashed grins. He took another sip. He’d been subject to worse anyway, especially in the beginning when Connor had expressed disgust at his choice breakfast of dry toast and day-old coffee, and dinner of leftover takeout. Thus, had begun the androids attempts at cooking and baking, which for a while made it painfully clear that he was _not_ , in any way, shape, or form, a household model. Even still, a year later, he had trouble gauging how much salt or sugar to put in shit.

As he watched Connor fumble around trying to put stuff back or in the sink, he noticed the way the android’s hands shook, his movements slightly jerky. As he opened the fridge, he also noticed that there was the same amount of blue blood bags in there that there had been last night. He sighed and held the fridge open when Connor tried to close it. He took one of the bags and grabbed a mug, popping it open and pouring the blue liquid into it.

“On the topic of morning beverages, hold out your hands.” Hank said. Connor did so, and Hank put the mug in them. Connor stuck a finger in and licked it.

“How did you…?”

“Your hands were shaking. Guessing that’s a thing that comes with low blood levels.”

Connor hung his head slightly, “I was going to get this after you left.”

“Why? You need it now.”

The android merely shrugged, not sharing what he was thinking or feeling, and took a sip. Almost immediately the shaking stopped. Hank let it go with a sigh.

“Anyway, I better head to work, otherwise I should just go back to bed. See you later Connor, be a good boy Sumo.”

“Give Captain Fowler my regards and apologies.”

“Will do.”

 

\---

 

He waited until he heard Hank’s car pull out of the driveway, driving down the street. He had been waiting for him to leave. He knew Hank would not approve of who he was about to call, but in his current situation, he had no choice.

He wandered and felt his way to the sofa, sitting and feeling Sumo climb up next to him.

[CALLING - RT600 CHLOE]

[CONNECTING. . .]

[CONNECTION ESTABLISHED]

“Good morning Connor.” Chloe’s pleasant voice rang through his head, though it was quiet, hushed. “To what do we owe the pleasure?”

“Hello Chloe, I was wondering if Mr. Kamski is available.” He said, as Sumo placed his head on his lap.

“Just a second.” She said. He heard a rustling in the background that sounded very similar to sheets.

“Elijah?” Chloe said with a softness he’d only heard her use with Kamski. He had the sense that he was intruding on something, something intimate.

A faint grumble was the response.

“It’s Connor, he’d like to speak to you.”

Kamski said something muffled that sounded a lot like, “the fuck does he want?”

Was he still asleep? He considered that could be a possibility due to the time. After all, why would a retired billionaire recluse be up at 8:30 in the morning? He’d always seen Kamski as something _other_ , as _creator_. He’d forgotten that the man was human.

“Elijah is unavailable at the moment, I can give him a message?” Chloe said.

“I am in need of repairs, more specifically a new pair of eyes.”

“Why not go to Cyberlife? They’d be able to help you far quicker than we could.” She asked.

“I… would rather not. Waiting is fine with me.”

A pause, “Up to you. I’ll pass along the message.”

“Thank you.”

“Have a good day, Connor. We’ll be in touch.”

“You too.”

[CALL ENDED – RT600 CHLOE]

He sat back for a moment, resting his head against the back of the sofa. It wasn’t the result he’d hoped for, but it was better than nothing. He just hoped that Kamski’s response was favourable. He knew he could—should—just go back to Cyberlife. He knew their tower’s warehouses had literally everything, including prototype optical units. He could be up and functional by the end of the day. But he refused to go back. The thought of going back there terrified him, too many things to remind him of before.

Also, after marching nearly all the Cyberlife warehouses through Detroit, he wasn’t even sure how welcome he’d be there.

Pushing those thoughts aside, he had one more call to make this morning.

[CALLING – RK200 MARKUS]

[CONNECTING. . .]

[CALL REJECTED]

He frowned and tried calling again, only to be rejected again. Maybe Markus was busy. After all, he was travelling all over America, and frequently meeting with the President. Or maybe, much like when he’d called Kamski just now, he caught him at an inopportune moment.

He would try the other leaders of Jericho before beginning to panic.

[CALLING – WR400 NORTH]

[CONNECTING. . .]

[CONNECTION ESTABLISHED]

“Hey Connor, what’s up? Been a while.” Her voice rang through his head. It was calm, upbeat even. That meant that nothing had happened to Markus.

“Hi, I need to talk to Markus, do you know where he is?”

“He should be in Washington again. He’s trying to get control over assembly lines from President Warren, but the bitch is being obstinate.” A pause, “Is something wrong?”

“I… yes. I’d like to hold a meeting with the four of you. I have something important to discuss, but I’d like to do it in person. Other than Markus, is everyone else here?”

“No, it’s just Simon and I holding the fort here in Detroit. Josh is in Chicago, but he’ll be back tomorrow, and Markus will be back in two days.”

He sighed. That was a lot longer than he’d like to wait, a lot longer than he knew he _could_ wait. 61 was out there, and he needed to warn them. Now.

“Connor? You good?”

“Yes. I’m fine. Just, until we can meet in person, tell everyone to be careful. I don’t want to say more, as this is classified police business, until we can meet.”

“Fine. Will do. I’ll let Josh, Simon and Markus know you want to have a meeting, and I’ll let you know when they get back.”

“Thank you North. Again, the four of you especially, be careful.”

“You know you’re really starting to worry me, right?”

“I know, just… please?”

“Fine, will do. Talk to you later.”

[CALL DISCONNECTED]

He had thought calling at least one of them would alleviate some of the worry and panic that he’d been barely staving off since last night. It didn’t. If anything, it made it worse. Distraction had proved to be the only remedy, and now, in the silence of the house and alone, it was like some oppressive force, slowly ticking up the numbers of his stress levels.

He decided upon taking a shower, simply for want of something to do. He hadn’t managed to take one since the events of last night, and now thinking about it made his skin crawl. It was unacceptable really. He also knew it would make him feel better. It usually did. He gently pushed the dog’s massive head off his lap, Sumo shifting position on the couch with a grumble.

“Sorry Sumo.” He said as he started to make his way towards the bathroom. His towel was easy to find, it was the one he’d stuck a sticky note to, telling Hank to stop taking it.

He remembered the first time he took a shower here, he’d removed his skin to wash better, and Hank had come in as he’d left. He hadn’t understood Hank’s reaction until he remembered he’d forgotten to put it back on. From then on, he’d been careful to keep it on, not just for Hank but also because he realized he didn’t really like his android appearance. He much rather liked how he looked with his skin on.

 

Taking a shower had helped bring his stress levels down to 50% for the first time since Hank had left, and it had helped pass the time. Now though, after he’d sat and figured out his wardrobe, was dressed and clean, the hours until Hank would be home seemed longer than they should be, longer than simply a collection of minutes and seconds should be. It caused an odd buzzing feeling, a restlessness, a _need_ to do _something_. He hated having nothing to do, nothing to keep his mind going. Being away from the precinct also meant he was away from his files, unable to work from home, as he often did. Hank didn’t know he brought work home, merely believing him to be reading, or browsing on his personal tablet. He would be upset with him if he did.

Sitting on the couch, browsing through the net in his head, he was brought out of mindless data searching by Sumo scratching at the door.

“Sumo?” He raised the sensitivity of his hearing. There was no one else at the other side of the door. Sumo scratched at it again, and it dawned on him. Hank had forgotten to walk him before work, as Connor usually would if he worked later or had the day off. It was habit.

“Hang on Sumo, let me get my coat.” He said as he got up. Sumo woofed, and he heard the dog sit down.

Changing into clothing appropriated for outside, he felt his way around putting on his boots and the dog’s leash on. He also activated his GPS program. He hadn’t needed to use it for a while, and he hoped he could configure it how he wanted.

[GPS BOOTING UP]

[SCANNING OPTICAL INPUT]

[ERROR – OPTICAL UNITS DAMAGED]

[BOOT MANUAL MODE?]

[YES]

[COURSE INPUT?]

[2 BLOCK RADIUS – STREET AND TURN NOTIFICATIONS ON]

[GPS ONLINE]

He grinned. He’d never had to configure it manually before, but hopefully with this, he’ll be able to walk Sumo and return safely.

“If we get lost, you’re responsible for bringing us home.” He pointedly told the dog. If his GPS system failed, it was up to the animal to see them home. Sumo gave a low woof, before Connor opened the door and the dog happily bounded out.

 

\---

 

He sat on the dirt path, a lone grey stone in front of him.

[RK800 – MARK (I)]

[#313 248 317 – 60]

[DIED – CYBERLIFE TOWER – NOV 11th, 2038]

He came here often, to the Zen Garden, to clear his mind. He found peace here, alone in this quiet world. It helped him focus, coming here to his predecessor’s grave. Though he possessed his previous version’s memories, he couldn’t help but think of him as someone different. Maybe it was because of the year in between his death and his reactivation. He sometimes thought of digging open the grave, just to see if there was a body in there. He wanted to see him, wanted to ask him questions. How did he die? Why did he die? What did he do so wrong that he failed his mission on such an important day, on the day that deviants won? How could he avoid a similar fate?

Being his successor, did that mean he’d fail too? Was his line of consciousness that flawed?

The sudden beginning of rain announced Amanda’s presence before her voice did.

“RK800-61.”

Oh no, she was upset with him.

“Hello Amanda.” He said. He didn’t turn around, didn’t look at her, didn’t stand up. She hated it.

“I’ve told you that your fascination with death is problematic to your mission.” He could hear the distain dripping from her voice. He turned to look at her then.

“But I’m just sitting here.”

Her eyes narrowed, and she turned and began walking away. “Walk with me, 61.”

He didn’t. He stayed where he was. He knew what was going to happen if he followed her, and honestly, he didn’t feel like it. He’d come here for peace and to be alone with his thoughts, not to be reprimanded. He watched her as her form moved away.

“Defiant as ever, 61.” She said when she noticed he wasn’t following.

He knew she could simply make him, and not wishing to feel that loss of control again, he stood, walking until he was next to her.

She gave that small smile that he _hated._ It was a smile to reward a pawn. She knew the kind of power she had, and she made sure he knew it too. He hated it.

“Tell me, how is your mission going?”

“I’m laying low for a little while. I led the police on a false trail, it’ll give me some time. I had been hoping to get close to Markus, to take him out, but it turns out he’s not even in the state.”

She nodded thoughtfully.

“Why then, did you engage Connor when I explicitly told you not to?”

Ah. That’s what she was upset about. As usual. Connor. It was always Connor.

“He’s the biggest threat to my mission, so I decided to take him out.” It was a half truth. They both knew it.

“I told you to leave him alive until I said so.”

“I calculated that he has over a 50% probability of stopping me, the highest out of all of the deviants. He’s the only one who could—”

“And I don’t care about your calculations. I didn’t want you to engage him and you disobeyed me.”

“Why? Why not? He is the biggest threat to my mission, what is so special about a flawed _deviant_ model that I should leave him alive to threaten everything?!” He rounded on her, coming in front of her and blocking her path, shouting in her face.

“ _That_ is none of your concern. You only need to concern yourself with your mission. Connor is to stay alive until I say so, and if you disobey me again, I _will_ have you decommissioned.” Her tone was steel. Final.

In the space of one blink to the next, he was forcibly ejected from the Zen Garden. Instead of the trees and flowers of late fall, he was staring at a dirty and decaying wall. He forced his breathing to regulate, to calm. He hated her. Nothing he ever did was good enough, ever. He wondered if she’d been like this with Connor. Probably not, even as a _deviant_ he was perfect. He also knew he sounded bitter. He didn’t care.

Something in Amanda’s wording bothered him. She hadn’t been upset at him for _killing_ Connor, simply for _trying_ to. She told him to keep him _alive_. Which meant that his human—Hank Anderson—had saved him in time.

She had also said he wasn’t allowed to kill him, not that he wasn’t allowed to see him.

Taking the keys to his rundown apartment, pulling up the hood of his hoodie, throwing on the old leather winter coat and left. This place was a dive, most apartments barely in livable condition, some uninhabitable. But it was secluded, discrete and the landlord didn’t give a shit so long as you paid rent. It was also the last place the police would think to look.

If Connor was still actually alive, he’d probably be staying at that human’s place. He began to walk to the subway station.

 

He walked along the street leading to Hank Anderson’s home. It was a peaceful neighbourhood, idyllic, just close enough to being a suburb while still being close to the city. A neighbourhood for families and retirees.

He would just take a peak inside the house, confirm if Connor was indeed alive, then leave.

What he hadn’t expected was to find him a block away from the house, with a giant dog. The dog stopped just before him, making Connor stop as well.

“Sumo? What is it?” They had the same voice. For some reason, he hated that.

The dog gave a low woof.

Looking him over, he looked no less worse for wear. Standing there in front of him--legs intact--winter coat on and giant dog by his side it looked painfully _human_. Only his eyes were any indication of what he’d done, scarred, pale blue on black and wandering. He still remembered driving the knife in over, and over, and over again, the crunch of blade through plastic, the spurt of Thirium, and he’d _enjoyed_ it. Every second of it.

“Hello?” Connor said into the silence, tilting his head. How cute, he was using his hearing to tell if someone was there.

He stepped forward, coming closer to the other RK800. They looked the exact same, right down to the placement of freckles. The dog barked in warning as he walked closer still. He reached out a hand, cupping his face. He wanted to connect to him, wanted to make him feel everything he was, all the anger, hate, everything that this fucking perfect _deviant_ couldn’t understand. He wanted to make him understand.

“What are you doing?” Connor asked, frowning. He kept his hand on his face.

He wanted to break him again, smash through plastic, break his limbs. He wanted to rip him apart, tear though his wiring. He dug his fingers into his jaw, digging in until he felt it crack, blue running down the side of his face, the pressure exposing the grey joint. He wanted to smash him until there was nothing but blue and mangled plastic.

The dog started barking like mad, trying to push him away with its body as Connor reached behind his coat and grabbed something, moving with a speed only they possessed, knocking his hand back with whatever it was.

He realized it was a gun once he was looking down the barrel. The aim was off, but the threat was there. It wasn’t worth it, wouldn’t be enjoyable, engaging with his blind counterpart now. He stepped back, the dog taking a defensive position in front of his owner, growling, teeth bared. It wasn’t worth it.

He turned and walked away.

 

\---

 

He didn’t know how long he stayed there after whoever that was had left, gun in his hand. On a feeling, he had taken it with him, hiding it under his long winter coat. He was glad he had. Who had that been? They’d said nothing, just stood there, holding his face until they’d tried to break his jaw. He hated that he couldn’t even see the threat, couldn’t see any of the predictive data, he’d barely even _heard_ the threat.

What if that had been the other RK800? If it was, why had he left him alive, again? It went against every calculation, every logical thought. It was irrational. He was thankful for that. He didn’t want to die, and when he’d felt those fingers dig into his face, dislocating his jaw, he’d been scared.

[STRESS LEVELS 85% - CRITICAL]

He felt the nudge of a cold nose on his hand, a soft whimper coming from Sumo. His knees gave way, and he knelt beside the dog, burying his face in his fur. The dog rested its head on his shoulder, and they sat there, Connor focusing on regulating his breathing, focusing on the dog’s warmth, listening as his stress levels slowly lowered.

“Come on, Sumo. Let’s go home.” He said, standing up and taking the dog’s leash, finally stowing the gun. The dog gave a bark as they turned and walked back home.

 

They’d easily made their way home, Sumo sitting patiently for Connor while he felt for the towel Hank kept for the dog’s paws. Connor had been trying to teach the dog new commands and had been very pleased to find that the command “paw” and “other paw” had stuck. Now to get Hank to use it.

Brushing off the snow that had gathered on his shoulders, he took off his coat and hung it over what he hoped was his other coat and not one of Hank’s, before making his way to the TV, turning it on with a hand and setting it to the sports channel. He didn’t know why, but there was something about shouting men and commentators that put the dog to sleep. He figured it was probably because that’s primarily what Hank watched in the evenings.

Taking up a spot of the couch, he quickly snapped his jaw back into place, working it to ensure it was in properly. He let the TV become white noise, instead focusing on his thoughts, analyzing, compartmentalizing. Turning feelings into data. They were easier to deal with that way.

The feeling of something landing in his lap startled him, a gentle woof alerting him of Sumo sitting in front of him. He felt the object in his lap, round and metal.

“You hungry, Sumo?” He said to the dog, reaching out to pet his head. He stood, taking the bowl and feeling his way to the kitchen. It was getting easier, he was figuring out how to navigate the house without sight, his mental map updating the more he fumbled around. He had to admit that he was starting to miss it, being able to see. He missed being able to see Sumo’s face, and Hank’s.

He didn’t know when he was going to get it back, if at all. He was banking a lot on a man’s near non-existent sense of goodwill. Would Kamski accept his plea for help? Would he decline? Would he try to go back to Cyberlife for a return to functionality? _Could_ he return to Cyberlife? Would he be stuck like this forever, simply because he’s a prototype?

[STRESS LEVELS – 75%]

Apparently compartmentalizing hadn’t worked. It was starting to less, and less.

He placed the dog’s bowl down where he hoped was its usual spot, feeling for the large bag of dog food. He realized then that he didn’t have a approximation for the position of the bowl from where he was and the possibility of dog food ending up all over the floor was high. So, he sat down, feeling for the bowl and placing it in front of him, carefully pouring the food in. He hoped most of it went in. He sat with Sumo, listening to the dog happily devour his food, working on trying to bring his stress levels back to 50%. In the past two days, he hadn’t managed to get it further than that, so he simply tried to maintain it.

He felt the giant dog lay down on his lap, his entire torso covering his legs, the dogs breathing relaxing him. He knew he could just move him, 170lbs of dog was nothing to him. But he didn’t want to. Instead, he laid his body on top of the dogs, lacing his fur in his hands, burying his face in the dog’s side. It was peaceful, comforting, and for the first time, his stress was going past 50%. So, he closed his eyes, listening to the breathing of the dog.

 

\---

 

“Connor?” Hank said as he went into the kitchen. When he’d come home, he’d seen the two of them on the floor from the doorway, and his first thought had been that something had happened. When he’d approached them, the dog had raised his head, but Connor hadn’t moved.

The android’s head picked up now, his eyes nowhere near where he was standing.

“Hank? When did you get home?” He asked to the wall.

“Just now. Everything alright?” Though the android seemed fine, he couldn’t help but be concerned.

“Yes. I had just accidentally gone into standby.”

“You fell asleep next to Sumo’s bowl? How long have you two been there?”

The android tilted his head, “About an hour, actually. Come on, up Sumo.” Connor said to the dog, gently shaking him. The dog didn’t move, instead laying his head back on his paws. Connor shook him again, before sighing and lifting the 170lbs dog, before standing up himself.

Though it looked fucking weird, with Connor carrying a fucking Saint Bernard in his arms, Sumo looked quite happy.

“Uh, Hank? Can you lead me to his bed?”

Hank started laughing, “Sure, kid.” He took the android’s arm, pulling him along until they reached Sumo’s bed in the living room.

“Right in front of you.” He said, and helped Connor guide the massive dog down into his bed. Sumo promptly rolled onto his back, exposing his stomach. “He wants you to pet him.” He said, as he took Connor’s hand, guiding it to the dog. He watched Connor’s face as he petted the dog. He’d always loved how happy he looked around Sumo. He noted that the android’s LED was still yellow. Had been since this morning.

 

After taking care of Sumo, and guiding Connor to the couch with the TV, Hank had gone and gotten sorted for the night, changing into a t-shirt and sweats, grabbing more leftover takeout and heating it up with a cold beer, and bringing Connor another mug of Thirium. He made note of having to pick up more tomorrow.

They’d sat and watched the sports game, and once he’d stopped fidgeting or playing with that fucking coin, the android eventually fell asleep to the Detroit baseball team winning. He noticed, as he decided to pack it in for the night—getting up at 8 am was starting to kick him in the ass—that Connor was going on standby a lot since the other night, to the point of “accidentally” doing so. He’d ask him about it in the morning, maybe the stupid android wasn’t getting enough Thirium or something, which seemed like something he’d do, but it still made him worry.

He carried the android to his room, putting him in the same spot as last night, gently lowering him down onto the bed and throwing the blankets over him. The fact that the android’s stress levels had been consistently high was bad enough, didn’t help that he was acting weird too. He wasn’t letting the kid outta his sight if he could help it.

He’d been a distracted mess at work, his mind constantly wandering back to Connor. What if he’d gotten himself in trouble, or lost, how was he handling the loss of a sense, what if his stress levels got too high, and he came home to him dead? He had been tempted to call him to make sure he was alright at least 20 times. He’d refrained from each, not wanting to seem like an overbearing parent.

He’d also been happy that he’d only been given paperwork for the day.

Sumo curled up at the bottom of the bed again, his heavy head on Connor’s feet. The dog had always liked Connor, but since his injury, he’d become inseparable from the android. Sumo had always had a way of knowing when someone was having a hard time, becoming a constant, solid, furry comfort. God knows how many times he’d been that for Hank.

He climbed in himself, turning off the lamp and rolling over to face the android, falling asleep to the peaceful, even breathing of both of his bedmates, and the soft glow of Connor’s blue LED in the dark.

 

\---

 

He pulled back, the haze of hate and desire to hurt finally dissipating. He wiped a Thirium coated hand over his face, observing his work. It was _sloppy_ by his standard, by his taste. By his _standard_. Blue splattered everywhere, the inner wiring of both deviants splayed and hacked up, the blade in his hand coated up to the hilt, dripping blue.

When he’d first been activated after a year of being “dead”, he’d wondered at these new found “emotions”. This hate and anger, this enjoyment of hurting others, the pure, unbridled hatred of deviants. He knew they didn’t exist in his predecessor, though they both shared a dislike of deviants, his predecessor had been clinical about it, cold. A machine. He’d asked Amanda, worried that he’d become deviant, and she had assured him that they were just necessary code added to ensure he completed his mission well, said his hatred of deviants was intended. That he wasn’t one.

Every time he saw that Software Instability alert in the corner of his view, he wondered more and more if that was still true.

He sat down, knees pulled up, playing with the bloodied knife, flipping it up and twirling it in tune with his thoughts, staring at the blank and frozen face of the two dead androids before him. He’d killed them in a blind fit, but now he realized they weren’t _worthy_ of being killed in such a manner. They had been a band-aid covering a bullet wound. A futile and temporary fix. He also knew that the police would easily link this back to him, that _Connor_ would know it was him. No, they were not worthy. This wasn’t how he wanted to start his game with his counterpart.

So much for keeping a low profile for a while.

He rocked forward back onto his feet, standing up in one fluid motion as he tossed the knife up, catching it when he was fully standing. The neighbour had already knocked earlier and would likely call authorities soon without an answer. He stared at the knife in his hands. Even though this knife was one of his favourites—it hacked through plastic wonderfully well—he decided to leave it as a gift, a small token for Connor. If he was half the hunter he used to be, he’d find it. A prelude to the game.

Sliding it under one of the armchairs, he went back into the empty kitchen, running his hands under water and wiping down his face. Thirium evaporates within hours, but he’d be among people sooner than that. Couldn’t go out looking like a murderer. Cleaned up, he made for the back door he’d entered from, ensuring it was locked before he left.

[SOFTWARE INSTABILITY INCREASED]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, got a concussion at work. Luckily, I have a chapter already finished. Unluckily, screen-time is to be limited for me. So the next update might take a while, sorry guys!
> 
> Anyway, hope you guys enjoyed!


	4. January 25th, 2040 - 8:00 AM

Without work to go to, Connor knew he didn’t _have_ to get up so early, and he honestly contemplated returning to standby. He could figure out how to make Hank’s coffee before he insisted on him leaving at 10. Or at least, that’s what he had been originally planning until he heard the soft, rhythmic snoring of Hank, the volume and proximity suggesting that his head was against the man’s chest. Shit. He froze, trying to keep any sudden movement from waking him up. Feeling around, he determined that he was, again, in Hank’s room, even though he hadn’t started in here. He’d been on the couch, again. Was sleepwalking an actual thing for androids? If it was, that wasn’t a good thing. He had to get out of here before Hank woke up.

Problem being, he had no idea where he was in proximity to anything. Was he on the left side of the bed? The right? He had no way of knowing. So, he took a chance, sliding backwards slowly. With any luck, he’d be able to feel the edge of the bed before he went tumbling off it.

He hadn’t anticipated the edge of the bed to be so close, and he went falling off it, yelping a “fuck!” as he landed heavily on his back, head hitting the edge of the side table on his way down.

“Jesus Christ, Connor!” Hank yelled as he startled awake. He felt large hands on his face, “You alright?! What happened?!”

“I… I’m fine, Hank.” He tried to pull away from him, but all he managed to do was hit his head again.

He felt Hank’s hands search him, checking for any new injury. This had been the _last_ thing he’d wanted, now he was going to have to explain to the man just _how_ he got in here, which he had no answer for.

Eventually the hands withdrew, a heavy sigh coming from Hank. “Scared the shit outta me, kid…”

After mulling it over—his Social Relations program was useless—he decided to just bite the bullet, so to speak.

“I’m sorry Hank, I didn’t mean to startle you, I was trying to leave before you woke up, especially before you realized I was even _in_ here and—”

“Hold up, slow the fuck down. Breathe. Start at the beginning. What do you mean “before I realized you were in here?””

“Well, for starters, I don’t know how I got in here, so I can only assume it was unintentional and an accident. Considering that, I have a question.”

He heard Hank sigh heavily, “How the fuck do you think you got in here? I brought you in.”

“I… what?” That had not been the answer he was expecting.

“You heard me. I brought you in, kid. You think I haven’t noticed that your LED thing has been yellow for two solid days? I was worried about ya, and I wanted to keep an eye on you. Can’t have you self-destructing or some shit…” Hank mumbled.

“Oh.”

They sat in silence for a while, Connor taking the time to work out his emotions. Embarrassment, he knew, mixed with a little guilt, but underneath was a new one. One he didn’t know. He decided to push it aside and into the “analyze later” box.

“Now, if you don’t mind, it’s way too fucking early for this shit and I ain’t getting up at 8 a second day in a row.” He heard Hank get up and get back into bed, rolling over with a huff.

Now that his mind wasn’t racing, an audio alert rang through his ears.

[THIRIUM LEVELS LOW]

He sighed, before getting up and working his way out of the room, stopping in the door for a second. He checked Hank’s breathing, only leaving when he was satisfied the man was asleep.

 

He made it to the kitchen easier this time, his feeling and bumping around the house was slowly improving his mental map, giving him a more concise “view” of the house. He remembered where objects were, the approximate distance of furniture to wall. It was an odd new form of sight, even if partial. A view of lines, grids and data behind his eyes. It was nice, being a little more self-sufficient. At least in one area. Outside the house was another story.

He popped open the Thirium bag, not bothering with a mug. He knew Hank would be disgusted and yell at him if he knew. Good thing he’d still be asleep for another hour and a half.

 

\---

 

After waking up for the first time after bolting up thinking Connor had gone and killed himself, he awoke to the pleasant smell of coffee and fresh toast. He cracked open an eye, peaking at the clock. 10:11. Either Connor had decided to let him sleep in, or he’d forgotten to get him up. Either way, his body-clock was starting to adjust to that damn android’s imposed schedule.

He sat up with a groan, his back protesting, and shoved Sumo over. He was getting way too used to being up on the bed. He didn’t have the heart to take him off, he simply shook his head as the dog claimed his now vacant spot.

Speaking of bedmates, he’ll have to check in on Connor. He hadn’t thought that moving him would cause such a reaction. He had just wanted to keep an eye on him, he didn’t mean to freak him out. Twice. It explained his odd reaction yesterday, acting like a kid caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to. Cole had done that a lot. Hank sighed as he made his way to the bathroom. He swore that the android was gonna overthink himself to death one day.

Partially ready for the morning, he made his way to the kitchen in time to see Connor feeling his way around placing something on the small, shitty dining table.

“Mornin’ Connor.” Hank said as he entered. Connor startled, nearly dropping what was in his hands. The kid was also really fucking jumpy lately.

“Sorry, didn’t hear you come in.” Connor said, finishing placing the table.

“Wasn’t exactly being quiet.”

Connor shook his head, “No, I just wasn’t paying attention.” The android stepped back, revealing the table. Fresh coffee, and toast that wasn’t just plain with butter. In fact, there was even fruit. Fuck.

“C’mon Connor, you know you don’t have to do this.”

Connor shook his head again. “You need to eat well. And… I needed something to do.”

As if summoned by the smell of food, Sumo came lumbering around the corner, walking up to Connor and eagerly sniffing his hand. Connor smiled before taking a small plate of chopped up bananas and feeding them to the dog.

“You really gotta stop spoiling him.”

“Bananas are a perfectly safe treat for dogs. I looked it up.” Connor said as he gave another piece to the dog. Sumo downed it happily, tail slowly swishing.

“That’s not what I mean.”

Connor chose to answer by looking in Hank’s general direction and defiantly placing the plate down for Sumo. The dog devoured its contents. Hank sighed and conceded this battle a loss. Satisfied with his victory, Connor sat down across from him, taking his coin out of his pocket and fiddling with it. Fidgeting.

So, Hank drew in a breath and decided to change the subject, not exactly ignore the elephant in the room, more like pretend it didn’t exist at all.

“Hey, Connor. I got a question.” Hank said.  

“Hmm?”

“You’ve been sleeping a lot lately. More than usual. Is everything okay?”

“Yes, everything is fine. My self-repair program just works better and faster when I’m in standby.”

“Huh. Kinda like humans, “sleep is the best medicine” and all that.”

“Correct. In standby, less of my system’s power is being diverted to things like cognitive or physical system function, thus allowing my self-repair program to work at a greater capacity.”

“Huh.” Hank said again. The fact that Connor had been going on standby by accident lately was telling of the amount of damage done to him. He shoved down the worry that thought caused.

Silence settled between them, no longer quite as tense as it had been. If Connor wasn’t gonna bring this morning up, he wasn’t gonna push it. The android had started to pet Sumo’s head as it rested in his lap, resting his head in his hands, staring off. His LED blinked yellow, processing, and Connor sat up.

“I need to take this.” He said, standing up, “Hello?”

Hank knew he’d never get used to how androids _functioned._ Like the fact that they received calls directly to their brains.

“I see… months?” A sigh. “No, that’s—that’s fine. I’ll wait. Send my thanks. Goodbye.”

The LED flashed again, and Connor turned to Hank’s general direction.

“So, I have good news and bad news.”

Hank sighed heavily. “Good news first.”

“Elijah Kamski has agreed to make me a new pair of optical units.”

“Elijah fucking _Kamski_?! You went to _that_ son of a bitch?!” He, personally, did not have fond memories of the fucker. He couldn’t even fathom why Connor _chose_ to go to him.

Connor winced, “Yes I did.”

“Why?! Why not just go to Cyberlife?”

“Because I am not going back to Cyberlife.” Connor’s tone changed. He’d struck a nerve. They hadn’t talked much about Cyberlife or anything like that since last year, distracted by setting up life after evacuation orders, and a new species attempting to establish themselves. Clearly the place held some bad memories for _both_ of them.

Hank sighed again, dropping the subject. “Fine. And the bad news?”

“It’ll be a few months until they’re ready. Prototype eyes aren’t easy to make from scratch.”

“We… we can work with that.”

Connor nodded but his slight frown said otherwise, his hands fidgeting with his sleeves, LED spinning too fast.

“Look, we’ll figure something out. Don’t worry, you won’t be stuck in the house forever.”

Connor nodded but didn’t seem convinced. He felt his way back to the chair, sitting down. They sat in silence, each processing the news.

A ding from his phone broke it, Connor’s head whipping around to the sound in that freaky inhuman way it did.

A text.

CHRIS M: Hey Lieutenant, need you at the precinct, got a murder with your case’s MO all over it.

Shit. Perfect timing.

“Fowler wants my ass at the office.” He said. Lied.

“Everything alright?” Connor asked.

“Yeah, apparently there was a problem with the paperwork yesterday.” He lied again. He didn’t quite know why, but he didn’t want him to know there had been another murder by the other RK800.

Connor nodded, as Hank stood up, downing the rest of the coffee, blissfully less sweet than yesterdays.

“Well I’m off, thanks for the grub.”

“Be careful, Hank.” Connor said, LED flashing red.

For a moment, he wondered if the android could tell he was lying, even without all his analyzing bullshit. He could hear heartrate and shit, right? If he was paying attention to all that shit, then he was fucked.

“The biggest threat will be Fowler yelling at my ass again, don’t worry.”

Connor nodded, LED going back to yellow.

“Be a good boy Sumo, take care of Connor.” He said to the dog. Sumo woofed, drooling on Connor’s lap.

Connor made a face, and Hank gave a chuckle as he grabbed his coat and keys, heading to the crime scene Chris texted him the address for.

 

Arriving at the scene of the crime, it didn’t really fit the locations of the other murders. This place was nice, a good building in a good part of town. Honestly, aside from the police cars, officers and tape everywhere, this seemed like the least likely place for a murder.

Getting out of his car, he was greeted by Ben, tablet in hand as always.

“Mornin’ Ben. What’re we looking at?”

“Hey Hank. Nasty murder, two androids, listed as mother and daughter on the lease. Can’t tell estimated time, as androids don’t rot, but the neighbor reported noise at about 8:30 pm last night. Got the Landlady to open the apartment when they wouldn’t answer and found the bodies. Called it in this morning.”

They took the elevator up to the apartment, Ben rattling off info as he usually does. Hank was only half paying attention. He liked to look at a scene without statistics and data in his head, that’s what Connor was usually there for.

He paused in the open doorway, surveying the scene. It was… gruesome. The blue blood had long since evaporated, but the heavy chemical smell lingered, burning the back of his nose. In the center of the living room were the two androids—a woman and a young girl--their bodies next to each other on the floor, white, damaged plastic showing through their skin. It reminded him painfully of how Connor had looked that night.

Their bodies were frozen in their death-throws, faces blank and staring, LED’s dark. He’d always found it eerily disturbing the way androids died. There wasn’t ever the slackness of death, just bodies and faces frozen in their last moments of life.

Stepping in for a closer look, the plastic casing of their abdomens was open, the wiring that resided spewing out in cut, blue tubes that looked disturbingly like hacked up innards.

“Hey Hank. So, what do you think? Same perp? Looks a lot like how we found Connor.” Chris said, stepping away from another officer and coming up to Hank.

“Yeah it does.” Hank mumbled, carefully walking around the bodies. He’d been yelled at one too many times by his partner for accidentally stepping in blue blood, even though he couldn’t see it. “I dunno Chris, looks a lot like our guy but… this is sloppy. None of the previous murders have been this messy. See how the tubes are just hacked up like that? That’s not our guy.”

Chris nodded, “That’s what I was thinking too, but there’s not really anyone else who’d do this. Especially like _this_.”

“Maybe it was a hate-crime? Did these two have anyone that disliked them? Neighbours, co-workers?”

“No. Their neighbour—the one who reported the noise—would often babysit for the girl. The mother was well liked at her work, quiet but efficient. Also, absolutely no fingerprints on anything, which rules out a human perp.”

“Huh. Got anything on time of death?”

“No, not until Forensics gets back to us.”

“How’d the perp get in?”

“No idea, it was a closed room murder. Front door and fire-escape were locked, so were all the windows.”

“Goddamn it.” He swore.

He broke from the bodies, observing the surroundings, trying to glean any form of evidence or clues. The cleanliness of the scene bespoke of 61’s “style”, even if the actual bodies did not. Untouched environment, closed room, not any form of leftover evidence to lead back to him, at least none that weren’t intentional, and bodies that were killed in a way that said slow death and enjoyment of the kill.

As he walked around, he had to admit he missed Connor’s presence here. His analytical ability, his skill as a detective, even his gross ability to stick shit in his mouth and get a reading way faster than Forensics ever could, but also the second pair of footsteps following him, a second pair of eyes, a partner. He shook his head. He’d been without a partner for a long time before Connor, he can deal with not having one again.

They logged evidence, Forensics taking it away in bags, listing friends, neighbours, for questioning, the usual. They’d leave the scene untouched for a few days, wait for Forensics to get back to them with some data. He’d go back to the precinct and fill out the paperwork. Though they had no real confirmation that this murder belonged to their case, now nothing else made sense. The whole nature of it fit.

What he wouldn’t give to have Connor’s reconstructive program right now.

 

Returning to the precinct, he settled down at his desk. Paperwork was hardly his favourite part of the job, but he’d been a cop long enough to be used to it.

Filling out monotonous sheets caused his mind to wander back to this morning. Post-revolution, he hadn’t really thought about what Connor’s feelings revolving around Cyberlife were. In fact, he really didn’t know much about the android _before_ the Revolution. He’d just show up, they’d do cases, and he’d leave. Did he do other things while not needed at the precinct? Did he just wait in a warehouse somewhere, parked like other androids used to be in those creepy “parking stations”? 61 had also said something about an “Amanda” in Connor’s memory, who was she? Why was she disappointed? Connor had never mentioned someone by that name.

“Lieutenant?” Chris’s voice broke him from his thoughts.

“What up? Another murder?” Hank asked. Wouldn’t be the first time 61 had done two in a day.

“No, actually. We just received a noise complaint.”

“And why is that my problem? Give it to one of the newer officers.”

“Well you see… its regarding your address. A neighbour lodged a complaint against your address after requesting “exceeding amounts of noise” to be quieted and being refused.”

“The fuck? Alright, I’m on it.” Hank said, getting up. It was an excuse to not deal with more paperwork, and now he was worried. Connor and Sumo were the only one’s home, and neither one of them were particularly noisy. Maybe 61 had decided to finish the job?

 

He drove fast, just pushing the speed limit, but not enough to make a traffic cop pull him over. Pulling in haphazardly into his driveway, he could _feel_ the bass reverberating _from inside his car._ Getting out of his car, he could hear why a neighbour had lodged a complaint. The bass alone was making his ears hurt. The fuck was Connor _doing_ in there?

Opening the door was worse. Noise blasted at his eardrums, causing him to cover them. The house was dark, no lights on, aside from the TV at full volume, and various songs going at the same time from different sources, the same volume, creating an unholy cacophony of noise. Since becoming a deviant, Connor’s music taste had branched off from heavy metal into industrial. He hadn’t been surprised, since he’d expressed an interest in Knights of the Black Death, he’d often leave it on for him in the car pre-deviancy. Post-deviancy, Connor had admitted he still rather liked it, before slowly branching off from there. However, he really hadn’t needed to know what techno, heavy metal and industrial sounded like playing on top of each other.

“The fuck Connor?!” He shouted through the house, but his voice was lost under the noise. Making his way through, and searching for the android, he began turning shit off.

Eventually it was down to only a single source of noise, coming from Connor’s room, and he figured that’s where he’d find the android. He also found Sumo trying to shove his giant body under his bed, the dog only coming out once it was quieter and Hank was standing in the doorway, the giant beast shoving past him and clawing at Connor’s door.

“Yeah, I know the fucker is in there.” Hank muttered, rubbing at his still ringing ears.

He opened the door to the android’s room, and much like the rest of the house, it was dark, Connor himself lying flat on his back on the bed, legs dangling off the end. He didn’t seem to have heard him enter.

“The fuck is going on Connor?” Hank said over the blasting industrial from the tablet next to him—the only source of light in the room.

Connor didn’t move, didn’t seem to hear him.

“Connor!”

The android jolted up, eyes wide and searching. Flicking on the light and looking him over, the android looked like a hot fucking mess. His hair was disheveled, like he’d pulled it, clothes rumpled.

“Hank.” A pause, “You turned everything off.”

“Of course, I did! You got us a noise complaint at the station.”

“Oh.” Another pause, “Sorry.” It almost sounded like an afterthought.

Hank couldn’t help it, he softened. Shit he was getting old. He sat down next to the boy.

“Care to tell me what all of that was about?”

“… I was trying to see how well my audio processors could multitask and differentiate sounds at maximum volume.” He made it sound like this was a perfectly rational, sane thing to do. It wasn’t.

“And _why_ were you trying to see how well your ears multitask?”

Connor was silent for a moment, LED flashing between yellow and red. For a moment, Hank worried he was gonna self-destruct. He certainly seemed distressed enough for that to be a possibility.

“Because my neural processors feel like they’re going to implode. I—I need something to do. I can’t just stay here, like this, and it’s going to be _months_ until I can see again, until my programs are functional, I _need_ something to do.” Connor’s hands found their way into his hair, taking fistfuls of it.

Hank quickly took his hands and gently pried them from his hair. He didn’t think androids _could_ pull out their hair—what with it being synthetic and all—but he’d rather be on the safe side. This was looking way too close to a meltdown for his liking besides.

“Hey, hey calm down. Let’s not press the panic button yet. I’ve got a few ideas, but they require you to _not_ blow up. Can you do that?”

Connor nodded, burying his face into Hank’s shoulder. He sighed and rubbed circles into the android’s back. It really was like having a kid again sometimes, albeit an emotionally unstable and inept kid with a supercomputer brain that only gained sentience a year ago. Go figure.

“By the way, which neighbour was it that complained?”

“Mrs. Pearson.” Connor mumbled into his shoulder.

“Ugh, hate that bitch.”

“She knocked on the door first, asking me to turn it down. Said she’d call the police.”

“What’d you do?”

Connor pulled back, a mischievous grin on his face.

“I told her I was the police and slammed the door in her face. At least, I hope it was her face.”

“Attaboy.” Hank said, rubbing a hand through Connor’s hair. “Now, in order to make one of those ideas work, I gotta go get something, and you need more blue blood. Will you be okay?”

Connor nodded.

“Okay, I’m gonna walk Sumo really quick, then head out.”

Connor nodded again.

“Okay then.” Hank said, getting up with a grunt.

Connor followed him out, not using the walls to navigate. At least that was progress. He set Connor up on the couch with the previously abused tablet, turning some lights on as late evening began to fall. He knew Connor didn’t need them, didn’t even need them _before_ going blind, what with his night vision and all. It had scared the shit outta him first time he saw it. Had innocently gotten up in the middle of the night, to see a dark, humanoid shadow, a glowing blue LED, and two orange pinpricks of light. Scared the living shit outta him. Connor apologized about it for a week.

He walked Sumo quickly, half for Connor’s sake and half for the fact that he was freezing his fucking balls off, the temperature having taken a nasty dive. Checking his weather app—that Connor had insisted he install—said that there was a blizzard incoming. Great. Just what he needed.

He dropped Sumo off, cursing as the dog shook snow from his fur and making Connor laugh, setting him up with the sports channel, and leaving.

He drove quickly, trying to make it to his destination before the storm came and the store closed. He’d also texted Fowler letting him know he’d finish the paperwork tomorrow and got a row of expletives in return.

He’d thought about this earlier today, how Connor wasn’t so unlike a blind _human_ right now _._ And now that they had confirmation that this was gonna be a thing for a while, he figured he should set him up with proper disability gear. He also needed to pick up dinner, there weren’t any more leftovers for him to heat up.

As he drove back, the storm had started, making the roads harder to drive on, forcing his speed down more than he liked, getting stuck behind slow automated cars and taxi’s that adhered to weather warnings. This was one of the many reasons he hated automated cars. He thought to call Connor, make sure he was doing okay, before deciding against it. Then he realized, he’d thought to give the android space, allow him to feel this out on his own, not wanting to butt in or seem overbearing, but what if that had been the wrong approach? He hit call, startling slightly when it was picked up near immediately.

“Hank! Is something wrong? Are you okay? I saw that there was a blizzard coming in, you shouldn’t be driving in that.”

“Jesus calm down! I’m fine and aside from a little traffic and snow, the blizzard hasn’t hit yet. Just gotta make my way around these fucking automatic cars.” Hank growled as he honked at a car in front of him. He knew it wouldn’t do anything, but he felt like doing it anyway.

They talked the entire way, with Hank hanging up only when he pulled into the driveway. It made the drive and fucking traffic more bearable, while also assuring him that the android hadn’t gone and blown up.

He opened the door up to Sumo, taking more of an interest in the takeout bag than he himself.

“Nose off, Sumo! See Connor, you’ve gone and spoiled him, given him a taste of human food.” Hank said, as he tried to keep the bag out of the dog’s reach while taking off his boots.

“His poor taste in food can only be blamed on one of us. I only give him healthy things.” Connor said indignantly from the couch. He had changed to a different pair of pajamas, laying down with his head on the arm of the couch and knees pulled up. Judging by the indent in the pillows at his feet, Sumo had been on the other end.

As Hank took off his coat and moved towards the kitchen, he saw Connor’s head pop up, nose in the air.

“Is that takeout?”

“What if it is?”

Connor frowned. “I can’t analyze it, but the amount of grease I’m smelling says that it’s horrible for you.”

“The fuck, how can you _smell it?!_ ”

“I raised the sensitivity on my olfaction sensors.”

“No. That’s fucking freaky. Don’t do that.”

Connor laughed.

 

Hank changed into something more comfortable, though sadly due to the weather and failing heater meant a thick hoodie and sweats. He made his way back to the kitchen, Sumo having returned to his spot on the couch. Taking the burger and drink from the bag, he took the other item he’d picked up out of its packaging before making his way to the couch.

“Hey Connor, got something for ya.” He said when he was in front of the android.

Connor frowned, placing the tablet on the coffee table before holding out his hands. He placed it in them, watching as the android’s frown deepened.

“What is it?”

“You tell me.”

Connor felt his way along it, startling slightly when he realized parts of it snapped into place. He worked his way down the entire thing, slowly opening it up until he hit the end.

“Is this a seeing eye cane?”

“Yep. Figured if you’re going to be going back to work, you could use some old-fashioned human disability help.”

“I’m going back to work?”

“Yeah, that was my idea. I mean, there’s always an abundance of paperwork and desk stuff to do… and since you can just connect to the terminals, figured it wouldn’t be too hard to do, given current circumstances. You could come with me to the station tomorrow, see if Fowler’ll give you a desk job.”

For once, the android seemed speechless.

“I… you didn’t have to do this.”

“Connor, you’ve been bumping around here like a broken Roomba for the past two days. Since we know this is gonna be a thing for a while, well, figured you could use the help.”

Connor jumped up, hugging Hank tightly, before pulling away and giving the cane a try. It knocked into a few furniture pieces, causing Sumo to woof and eventually leap up to try to grab it. Eventually Connor was locked into a tug-o-war over the cane with the dog, making Hank laugh from his reclaimed spot on the couch. He knew he was stronger than the dog, and could easily take it from him, but Connor liked to play with the giant beast. The android looked the happiest he had in two days, and at last his LED was blue when he _wasn’t_ asleep.

Hank opened the drink he’d set on the coffee table, hoping that Connor wouldn’t notice the fact that it was soda.

“Don’t think I can’t smell the carbonated sugar in that, Hank.” Connor said from the other side of the couch, still “wrangling” with the dog over the cane.

“I told you to turn that shit off!”

Eventually the dog gave up it’s futile fight for the cane, settling next to Hank as he ate and watched the baseball game. It wasn’t the Detroit team tonight, but whichever team won would face off against them later. He liked to see who the competition would be.

He also kept an eye on Connor, who was testing out his cane throughout the house, mapping out his surroundings. Again, satisfied with a job well done, he leaned back, enjoying a cold beer, soda and a game.

 

\---

 

The cane that Hank gave him was, honestly, amazing. It expanded his mental map exponentially, being able to locate obstacles before physically hitting them, while also making freestanding darkness not so scary anymore. He had something to hold onto, something to guide him now.

Eventually he returned to the couch—a much faster endeavour—shoving Sumo’s butt over and folding up the cane, setting it on the table. He returned to his previous position, tucking his feet underneath the warm dog, resuming what he was doing on the tablet.

 

He hadn’t noticed the passing of time, only realizing once Sumo changed position, shoving his legs hard and jolting him from standby. He hadn’t even noticed he’d _gone_ on standby. That was getting annoying, despite knowing the reason. An audio alert told him it was after 1 am. He placed the tablet down, raising his audio sensitivity. He heard Sumo’s gentle, asleep breathing, the TV was slightly too loud now, but Hank’s breathing had a slight irregularity to it, an irregularity that concerned him.

He climbed over the dog, apologizing when he grumbled in his sleep, not pleased with being disturbed, as he tried to get closer to the man.

He raised the sensitivity as far as it could go, also trying to hear his heartrate.

[AUDITORY SCAN – SLIGHT LABOURED BREATHING – CAUSE: OBSTRUCTED AIRWAY – SOLUTION: ADJUST POSITION]

[AUDITORY SCAN – SLIGHT ARRYTHMA – CAUSE: MILD INTOXICATION – SOLUTION: ADJUST POSITION]

He sighed in relief, at least it wasn’t anything serious.

“The fuck Connor?!” Hank’s slurred voice so close, and magnified tenfold made Connor startle violently, falling off the couch, clutching his ears as they rang with static and popped.

“Connor, you alright?” Though further, his voice was still too loud.

“Yeah, just hold on…” His ears popped one last time, before he was able to lower their sensitivity. He released his ears, giving a thumbs up into the air.

“The fuck was all that about? What were you doing?”

“I was trying to hear your heartbeat.”

“Why?!”

Connor winced as his ear popped again. He was going to need to get a handle on that, especially if he was going to need to rely on it.

“Because I thought I heard an irregularity, and I wanted to make sure it wasn’t dangerous.” He said simply. He didn’t often voice it, but he was concerned for the man’s health. Years of alcoholism weren’t going to be kind on him, and the thought of him sick or worse brought up the type of emotions he tried to push aside. Ones that sent his stress levels skyrocketing and his Thirium Pump hammering.

He heard Hank sigh, “Not worth going deaf over.” He heard the man stretch, groaning as something popped. “What time even is it?”

“A bit past 1 am.”

“Shit. Fowler’s gonna have my ass if I show up to work as late as today. Especially after cutting.”

Connor nodded, before standing up and helping Hank clear the coffee table, the TV off, nothing but the two of them moving about the house and the gentle snores of Sumo. He picked up the large dog once he heard Hank turn off the lights, smiling as he rested his head on his shoulder. He had Hank lead him and the dog into his room, gently laying the dog down at the bottom of the bed.

“You know, you’re uh… you’re welcome to stay in here. If you’d like.” Hank mumbled.

He smiled, again that feeling from this morning coming back. He hadn’t had time to decipher it, but it was a fondness that was more than just partners at work, or housemates. Looking it up quickly resulted in one word: family.

“Sure.” He said, climbing into the bed, taking the left. He placed the cane on the small side table, folded. The thought of being alone wasn’t one he enjoyed entertaining. The perpetual dark was bad enough, but when there was silence too, it made him feel panicky and anxious, no sense to connect him to the world, just freefalling in nothingness. Hearing Sumo and Hank sleeping, breathing, grounded him.

He felt Hank climb in on the other side, a near, warm presence. He couldn’t keep the smile off his face.

“Night, kid.” Hank grumbled into his pillow

“Goodnight Hank.”

[INITITATE MODE – STANDBY]

[INTERNAL CLOCK SET – 7:00 AM]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive!  
> Sorta. Continued sick leave, but hey! I can look at a screen now! Take 2 chapters!
> 
> (Don't worry, we're getting to the action soon!)


	5. Janurary 26th, 2040 - 10:00 AM

For once in his goddamned life, he was actually finished, dressed, ready, Sumo walked and fed, and waiting all before Connor was done. Connor, who got up ungodly early. Connor, who was punctual to an obnoxious degree. This was unheard of, unprecedented. Also, really fucking annoying. Fowler was gonna rip _his_ ass a new one, but he was gonna make damn sure to throw the android under the metaphorical bus of the captain’s wrath. He’s taken a lifetime’s worth of shit from Jeffery, it was the younger man’s turn. Especially since it _was_ his fault.

“Connor! Hurry the fuck up!” He shouted through the house, Sumo woofing for emphasis.

“Coming!” He heard the android shout from the end of the hall. He was still in his room. Great.

A moment later, Connor came sliding down the hall in socked feet, not quite making the turn well and hitting the corner of the wall, one hand holding the folded-up cane, the other fiddling with his tie which was… no where near correct.

“Hank, could you give me a hand? Ties are apparently hard to do when you can’t use a mirror.” The android said, coming up near him.

Shit.

“Uh, sure.” Hank mumbled, taking the tie from Connor’s hand.

Connor frowned, staring somewhere over his shoulder. “You sound hesitant.”

“Do I look like the kinda guy who knows how to do a fucking tie?”

Connor opened his mouth, then closed it. “I never really thought about it.” He said quietly.

Hank made a noise in response, fiddling with the tie, trying his damned hardest, but ultimately having to admit defeat to the small piece of cloth.

“Ya know what, you don’t need this.” Hank said, hastily undoing the tie and throwing it aside. He then took to Connor’s collar—buttoned all the way up, as usual—and undid the first few buttons, smoothing out the collar of the dress shirt.

Connor frowned, fingers going to his collar, frown deepening when he felt them undone, and attempted to redo them. Hank slapped his hand away.

“Hank, professional attire is a requirement. That means a tie and buttoned dress shirt.” He said, disapproving.

“And if I can show up like this, and Gavin can look like he came outta a low budget version of Grease, you can stand to lose the tie and a few buttons.”

Connor’s mouth was a thin line of disapproval, LED spinning yellow. “Fine.” He fidgeted with the sleeve of his trench coat. “How’s… the rest? Did I do alright?”

Hank shook his head; the kid really did care far too much about his appearance. Nevertheless, he looked over the android. His clothes were impeccable as always, the fact that his wardrobe basically consisted of three colours worked in his favour. His hair however—normally imprisoned in an iron vice grip of layers of gel and product, beaten into a smooth, slicked-back submission—was a mess. A hot fucking mess. Disobedient curls sprang up at all angles and framed his face in a poor imitation of his usual style.

“Hold still.” Hank ordered, and Connor did, locking his body unnaturally into stillness. Hank ran his fingers through the kid’s hair, trying to help the situation. He remembered doing this for Cole, the boy’s hair tended to stick out at all angles, and he had a cowlick that refused to cooperate. He remembered taking combs and water to the boy’s head before sending him forth to school. He never thought he’d do this again for another son. Not that Connor was his son. He was his partner and friend, and simply needed his help right now. That was all.

Hank stood back, shoving the thoughts away as he observed his work. He nodded. “There.” Honestly, he hadn’t done much, simply undid everything Connor had tried to do. Uncontrolled looked better than the half-controlled thing Connor had attempted.

Connor beamed, “Thanks.”

“Not a problem.” Hank huffed, “Now, lets get to work before Fowler decides to put both of us on graveyard.”

 

\---

 

Hank’s car came to a stop, the engine being cut and the hum of the engine dying down alongside the jazz music from the radio. Judging by the cool, damp smell of underground, cars and concrete, they were in the precinct’s parking lot. Now, here at the station, he hesitated.

“Nervous?” Hank asked. He never really got much past the man. Best detective in Detroit was right.

“A little.”

“Well, Fowler would be an idiot to not give you a simple desk job. He’s always bitching about late paperwork.”

Connor nodded, taking a steadying breath, and popping open the car door, climbing out and slamming it behind him. He’d chosen his trench coat for its pockets, as he pulled out the cane from one of them, snapping it open.

“Lead the way.” Connor said once he heard the other door close. He heard Hank’s boots begin to walk away, and he followed their echoing retreat.

 

“Mornin’ Tiffany.” Hank said in front of him as they apparently passed the front desk.

“Good morning Lieutenant, Detective.” Tiffany’s pleasant voice said. She had been a receptionist at the precinct before the Revolution and had asked for the position back as a deviant. Connor gave a nod and smile in what he prayed was her general direction. He liked her company as one of the few androids who had returned to the precinct.

He began moving again when he heard Hank’s footsteps begin again, though in the near afternoon hustle and bustle of the station, they were becoming harder for him to pick out amongst the many.

Stepping past the clear doors—one of them clipping his shoulder as it swung closed--his ears were flooded with the quieter bustle of the station, low voices talking, the beep and hum of electronics and terminals, the sound of boots and sneakers on tile, the coffee pot running in the distance, TV turned to the news, two people in holding, one pacing back and forth, the other asleep. He took a moment to take in every sound, sourcing it, cataloging it, placing it.

He’d missed being at work.

“Hey Connor! Back from the dead!” Chris’s light, cheery voice was in front of him. He jumped slightly. He hadn’t heard the man walk up, a firm hand on his shoulder. He felt his way along the man’s arm to return the gesture.

“Chris? How are you? I’m sorry for the other night, I was… cocky. It won’t happen again, and I’m sorry for placing you in danger.” Connor said, hoping his was looking somewhat in the man’s direction. He’d heard Hank mutter a few times on how creepy it was when he wasn’t looking in quite the right spot, and some residual part of his programming insisted on minimizing the discomfort of the humans around him.

“ _You_ nearly die and you’re apologizing for putting _me_ in danger.” He could almost hear the exasperated shake of the man’s head. “I’m just glad you’re okay.”

A hand suddenly in his hair made him jump again, his hand leaving Chris’s shoulder to hover near the new hand touching him.

“Jesus Tina, give him a heart attack, why don’t you?” Chris said not unkindly.

“I can’t have a heart attack. At least, I don’t think so…” Connor replied, holding very still as the hand—Tina’s—hadn’t left his hair yet.

“I honestly can’t believe I’ve been working with you for over a year and I didn’t know your hair was curly. Its fucking adorable.” Tina said, fingers still running through his hair.

He heard Hank give a chuckle next to him and he turned his head to glare at the man. He had asked for help, not for him to _undo any form of control he’d managed to beat his hair into._ Hank’s laugh quickly turned into a “cough”.

“Keep it this way. Also, glad to have you back. I’ve only had Gavin’s bitching to listen to for the past three days, and frankly, I’m getting sick of it.”

Connor smiled, “Well, I first have to go beg for a desk job from the captain. Then you can catch me up.”

He felt Chris’s hand on his shoulder again, giving a reassuring pat before Connor nodded and made his way through the precinct. The cane helped, bumping helpfully off obstacles and furniture, alerting him to their presence before he himself collided with them, painting a mental view of their positioning. Finding the short staircase that led to the glass office, he felt for the rail, and made his way up, giving a sharp knock at the glass door.

There had only been one other time he’d stood in front of the captain like this, and it was to beg to be given the chance to earn a badge and become a detective in his own right. He’d been just as nervous then as he was now, except he hadn’t known the name for this emotion then. It wasn’t one he was fond of.

“Come in.” Captain Fowler called through the door.

Connor opened it and stepped into the near soundproof glass box, closing the door behind him. The TV was on to his right, so he positioned himself somewhere hopefully in front of the desk, twirling the cane in front of him in his hands. Hank was always scolding him for fidgeting. It got worse when he was nervous.

“I thought you were supposed to be on sick leave, Detective?” Fowler asked.

“And I am, however, I would like to ask for a desk job.” He tried to keep his voice calm and polite. His hands twirled the cane faster.

He heard Fowler sigh heavily. “What about your eyes? How would you be able to have a desk job without being able to see?”

“They are a… temporarily long-term situation, but one I can bypass. I can connect directly to the terminals, and as long as the paperwork and files are in electronic form, I can do the work.” He said confidently.

There was silence, only the man breathing could be heard. “Fine, knock yourself out. I’ll let everyone know they’re to send any and all paperwork to you electronically. Lord knows there’s no shortage of the fucking stuff.”

Connor beamed, “Thank you Captain.”

“Why’re you thanking me? You’re the one doing _me_ a favour. Dismissed.”

He left the glass room, unable to keep the smile off his face. There was very little he loved more than work, and to be officially back at the precinct, even if just a desk job, felt good. He couldn’t wait to connect to his terminal and get started.

He felt his way to his desk, hands gliding over nameplates, feeling the etched grooves in the metal to find his desk. His fingers finally felt over Hank’s nameplate, knowing his desk was in front of it. He groped for the back of the office chair, sitting in it and folding his cane and placing it on the desk. His hands searched for the built-in keyboard.  

“Told ya he’d give you the job.” Hank says with an audible smirk.

He returned a smile, before connecting to the terminal, the world around him quieting to a barely audible white noise as he dived headfirst into overwhelming, glorious amounts of data and code.

 

\---

 

He’d taken time to get a feel for this method, to figure out how things worked in the binary code of his police terminal. Was that the excuse he was going to use when Captain Fowler asked him why he hadn’t gotten to any of the paperwork being sent his way and was instead perusing their case file? Absolutely.

He reviewed the old information they had. Highly active serial killer, averaging anywhere between 10 to 23 kills per month, all android, varying locations, varying types of androids, no evidence left at the scenes, most were locked room murders. Has a habit of killing slowly, as though gaining sadistic pleasure from the act, and most victims died from Thirium loss due to abdominal damage and severed wires. Preferred weapon: knife. Has been actively killing for 4 months now. Estimated activation date: September or earlier.

Not a single lead. Until now. He uploaded the data he had from his encounter with 61, the memory fragment—in no way was he letting Hank see the entirety of that memory—and his own knowledge of his systems, programs and abilities as an RK800 that he knew they shared. It was unnerving, to say the least, to be reporting about _himself._ Yet not. He had taken being unique for granted, and now that he wasn’t… honestly made a mess of his thoughts and emotions, too many conflicting feelings. He shoved them down into the “sort out later” section of his brain.

He was about to exit the file when he noticed a file later than the one he had just added, but earlier than their last report. Yesterday. If he wasn’t completely connected to the terminal, he would have frowned. He opened the file, scanning through its contents and logging them into his brain. Another murder from 61, overseen by one Lieutenant Anderson.

He disconnected from the terminal, taking a moment for his systems to adjust to the actual world after being inside code and digital for a while. He vaguely recalled Hank leaving his desk, his footsteps retreating a while earlier. Focusing on sound, he located him in the break room, the coffee machine brewing and he and Officer Collins talking quietly.

He stood, placing himself in front of Hank’s desk in a similar fashion to how he used to pre-deviancy, hands clasped orderly behind his back. It was a habit he fell back into when he was pissed. And right now, he was _seething_. He had suspected something wrong yesterday morning, when Hank’s heart rate picked up when he told him about the text. He hadn’t expected him to _lie_ about another murder related to _their case._

He heard Hank’s returning footsteps, Ben’s right next to his. They both came up short at the desk, with Ben muttering a “I’ll let you deal with this”, before his heavier gait left.

“What’s up, Connor?” Hank said wearily, sounding like he was bracing for impact. The man knew him too well. He didn’t care.

“When, exactly, were you going to tell me there was another murder, _Lieutenant?”_ He said icily.

He heard Chris’s stifled “oh shit” from his desk, and Hank’s heavy sigh.

“Fuck, seriously? With the title? I was going to, just…” the man trailed off, letting the flimsy excuse of a defense hang in the air.

Connor turned his head to the direction of Chris’s desk, “Officer Miller, would you be so kind as to drive me to the crime scene?”

“Uh, yeah sure.” Chris sputtered.

“Good.” He said, picking up the cane on his desk and striding towards the underground parking lot.

Behind him, he heard Hank sigh again and swear, Chris falling in step behind him.

“Told you he’d find out. Don’t think I’ve ever seen him this pissed.” Chris whispered.

“Just fucking shut it, will you?” Hank grumbled back.

 

\---

 

Once in Chris’s police cruiser, Hank had once again tried to defend hiding case information from him, and the two of them spent the majority of the car ride bickering, Connor admittedly taking out some of his frustration regarding the case out on the older man, until they were both threatened with being kicked out and made to walk the rest of the way by Chris. They had fallen into an uneasy silence after that.

The car stopped moving, and Connor asked what area they were in, his frown deepening when Chris told him.

“What’s wrong?” Hank asked.

“Nothing, just… its rather close to where we live, isn’t it?”

“Huh, you’re right. Probably just a coincidence, don’t fret about it.”

“Right.” Connor ran a hand near subconsciously over his jaw. This all but confirmed that whoever it was the other night was indeed 61. He didn’t like that fact. Didn’t like that his counterpart had gotten so _close_ and he hadn’t known. Hadn’t been _able_ to know.

[STRESS LEVELS – 60%]

That audio alert was getting just as old as the low Thirium one was.

They got out of the car, Connor unfolding the cane as he came up behind the two men.

“That thing actually work for you?” Chris asked.

“Yes actually. Allows me to navigate the same way a blind human would.”

“Huh, cool.” He said, before walking off. It wasn’t hard to follow their footsteps; the street was rather quiet for afternoon.

The building itself was also quiet, the hum of the elevator as they stepped in and rode it up to the floor of the crime scene. Adjusting his hearing, he could make out of faint sounds of life throughout the building, of people going about their days.

The elevator stopped, and he followed the two through the building, only coming to a brief stop to click open a door, passing through the low buzz of the holographic police tape.

Standing in the threshold of the apartment, his heightened senses are assaulted by the smell of an enormous amount of Thirium, the chemical burning its way up his olfactory sensors, sending an overload of data into his brain.

Under the onslaught of data, he hadn’t noticed his partners had begun talking, their conversation just hovering around the edges of his senses. Though it did paint a very clear mental image of the general placement and _amount_ of Thirium coating the floor.

Mentally pulling up the file of the murder from earlier, creating a grid like view in his minds eye of the layout, furniture placement and positioning of the bodies. He folded up the cane, stuffing it in the trench coat’s pocket.

He picked his way around the mentally pre-constructed pool of blue blood, crouching near the bodies, reaching a hand out until it touched bare plastic, then stuck said hand into the mangled mess of wires spilling from her forcibly opened torso plating.

“The fuck’re you doing Connor?!” Hank shouted, his tone equal parts shocked and disgusted.

“I’m checking the damage done.” He said simply.

“Pretty sure that was covered in the file, so you _don’t_ have to stick your hand in a fucking _corpse’s fucking guts.”_

“I know, but I want to feel the damage for myself.” Connor would never understand the general reaction of disgust to him using his features and programs.

He heard Chris suppress a gag.

“You keep at that, I’m gonna go over here.” He said with a shudder in his voice.

Connor shrugged, “Suit yourself.”

“I have half a fucking mind to join him…” Hank muttered close by. A lack of retreating footsteps told him his partner had stayed.

Feeling around the still slick wiring, he determined the cause of death was 61’s preferred method—a knife, death by Thirium loss. However, the rest of what he was feeling made him frown. He searched for the AX’s temple, peeling back his skin to run a diagnostic.

[MULTIPLE BIOCOMPONANTS CRITICALLY DAMAGED – REACTIVATION IMPOSSIBLE]

He stood up, making his way over to the second body, again reaching out and feeling the exposed and destroyed wires of the smaller plastic frame. Same result. His frown deepened.

“This is… sloppy.” Connor muttered under his breath, more to himself than anyone.

“That’s what I said when I first saw it. Made a fucking mess this time.” Hank responded.

“No, not just that. Look at the wires, see how they’re jagged at the edges?” He said, taking one of said wires and displaying it, “He normally cuts clean. Deliberate. Not like this.” He stood up.

“You saying it isn’t him?”

“No, it is. It’s just… different. Sloppy, irrational… _emotional_. This wasn’t pre-planned. This was a purely, _emotionally driven kill.”_ He couldn’t help the tone of fascination in his voice. There was _nothing_ he loved more than picking apart a criminal’s mind frame.

He walked back to the first body, feeling her form for other points of damage. There were few, a few errant stabs marring the plastic around her middle, her back having more of such errant marks, a few puncturing through the plastic of her back, and her jaw was dislocated. He subconsciously rubbed at his own. That confirms 61 as both the murderer and who had visited him while walking Sumo. Also narrows down the time to shortly after said “visit”.

He felt down to her neck, feeling the cracked and split plastic, the demolished vocal module. He made sure she couldn’t cry out or call authorities. Like he’d done with him. Except sloppier, not the clean severing of just the important parts. There was no repairing this.

It made him wonder at the emotional and mental state of 61 at the time of the murder.

“You still got your pre-construction shit?” Hank asked, a bit closer to his own face than he’d realized.

“No, that went with my eyes.” He said, a pang of mournful regret in his chest. So many of his core programs were down. This was the first crime scene he’d ever gone to in his barely over one year of life that he didn’t have those. It gave him a new level of understanding and appreciation for human detectives.

“Shit…” Hank muttered under his breath.

“He grabbed her from behind, stabbing her a few times there before taking out her vocal module.” He said instead, rolling her over slightly so Hank could see.

“Which means he came in from somewhere where he could have taken her from behind.”

“Correct.” Connor said, standing up and making his way to the kitchen, stepping over a puddle of Thirium in the doorframe. As he walked, he took a minute to mentally lookup and download the entire blueprint of the building. That, paired with the files he had in his head of the case, gave him a near perfect grid view of his surroundings. It was the closest he’d gotten to “seeing” in the last 3 days.

“He entered from here.” He said, hand sliding over the back wall, feeling the molding of the doorframe, tracing it until he finds the handle, his fingers feeling around the old-fashioned lock, opening it and feeling the other side of it.

“The lock was picked recently, so he came up from the fire escape…” he said, trailing off and turning to face the kitchen. “She must have been exiting the kitchen—there’s Thirium in the entrance and on the wall there—so he grabbed her from behind, putting a hand over her mouth and stabbing her in the back. She probably slipped away and that’s when he grabbed her again, destroyed her jaw and vocal module, then probably straddled her and killed her by stabbing her repeatedly in the stomach. The little girl came to see what was going on, then he grabbed her and killed her in a similar fashion.”

“Holy shit…” Chris muttered.

“Ya sure your pre-construct thingy is down?” Hank asked.

Connor nodded, “I’m sure. I get an audio notification about it every morning.”

“It was a joke, Connor.” Hank said with a sigh.

“I know.” Connor said with a smile.

“Okay, but with your program down, how did you get all of that?” Chris asked.

“It’s what I would have done.” He said with a shrug, “If I was a sociopathic serial killer. Which I’m not. Though, its not hard to figure out which programs and coding were altered and reversed and simply go with that. We are both RK800s after all.” He added hastily with a shaky smile after the silence.

“Makes sense, in a weird, freaky-android-shit way.” Hank said.

Connor’s smile quickly faded into a thoughtful frown, “What I don’t understand,” he said as he moved back to the two corpses, raising the sensitivity of his olfactory sensors even further, “Is why it smells like there’s Thirium over here. There shouldn’t be.” He said, coming to a stop in front of an armchair, the scent stronger in the vicinity.

“You’re doing that freaky smell thing aren’t you?” Hank asked.

Connor ignored him in favour of sniffing around the area. It didn’t make sense, the smell shouldn’t be over here at all, given the trajectory of the other blood and the path 61 had taken. There simply shouldn’t _be_ any here, not even splatter. Which meant there was something over here creating it, some piece of this whole puzzle. A gift left by 61. A gift only he could find. He felt around the chair, his hands sliding in between pillows. Nothing. He crouched down.

“Fucking Bloodhound, Jesus Christ…” Hank muttered under his breath. Apparently, he didn’t know that Connor had set the base sensitivity of his hearing higher. He figured it wasn’t worth mentioning, not over this. Even if that was one of the names he’d had before, as the Deviant Hunter. It was a name that he’d rather leave in the past, though he could see how it applied now.

Folded up on the floor, he stuck an arm out underneath the chair, groping around in the dusty underneath until his hand hit something smooth and metal. He grabbed it, pulling it out, holding it by the blade as he held it up for his two partners to see.

“Gentlemen, I believe we have the murder weapon.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And 2nd chapter! Now we gonna start getting some action in here!

**Author's Note:**

> Commas, so many commas. Embrace them!
> 
> First fic ever! Hope you guys like it. :)


End file.
